The man actually blushed a furious red; his eyes stared at the ground in front of him; he knew not what to say.
"I suppose," continued Mr. Blakeney, "that, now you have been beaten, you are sorry for yourselves. It's a dirty game, surely, isn't it, attacking men who have done you no sort of injury. I don't know whether there's any shame left among you and your fellows, but you ought to be ashamed of yourselves."
The man at last found voice. "Yes," he said, "we are ashamed of ourselves, and that is why I've come to see you. I was always against this scheme of Engelbrecht's, but I was over-persuaded. I don't mind raiding Kaffirs, but I always said that it was a mistake going against white men."
"Rather a poor distinction, isn't it?" queried Mr. Blakeney. "The fact is, you back-country Boers have got into the habit of thinking that, where you go, rifles, and rifles only, are the law and the prophets. Sooner or later--sooner, I hope and believe, than later--you and your folk in the Transvaal and elsewhere will have to be taught that the day of the tyranny of the rifle is past, and that you will have to obey laws and behave decently like civilized folk. For fifty years--since your people left Cape Colony and entered the Transvaal--you have practically obeyed only such laws as pleased you."
The Boer did not like the lecture a bit. He twisted his right heel in the soil, and glanced sullenly at the Englishman.
"However," went on Mr. Blakeney, in a less serious tone, "I don't want to pursue an unpleasant subject, and I'm not much of a predicant.[#] But before I show you your wounded men, I want to know what you and your people are going to do."
[#] Predikant, Boer Dutch for preacher or parson.
"We are going to leave Karl Engelbrecht and trek back by ourselves to Benguela," returned the Boer; "and I am deputed to say we are all sorry we ever interfered with you."
"Well," answered Mr. Blakeney, "that's better news. Now come and look at your dead and wounded."
First assisting to bury the dead men, whose names were taken down by Mr. Blakeney, the Boer was conducted to the camp, where he spoke with his wounded comrades. The upshot of his visit was that two of the more lightly wounded Dutchmen were carried away that afternoon on horses sent up for them, while the remaining two, whose injuries precluded their immediate removal, were left in the English camp. At the end of a week these men also were in a fit state to travel, and, being carried down the hill in a rude litter, were got to their own wagons.