“Was it?” returned Mr Rogers; “I have my doubts about that latter. No doubt the Boers agreed to it, or rather didn’t object to it, at the time. But it was very much like pulling a drowning man out of the water, on condition of his being your bond-servant for evermore. He would agree rather than be drowned, but I doubt whether you could call that his free consent. It was rather his forced consent, to my mind.”
“What would you have had England do, sir?” asked Redgy.
“Help the Transvaal out of its difficulties, without insisting on annexation,” answered Mr Rogers. “The policy would have been as wise as it would have been kind.”
“And you would have given them their independence back when they asked for it after the Zulu war, I suppose?” said Margetts. “Would you give it them now?”
“I should certainly have given it on the occasion you name, when they asked for it. It had then become clear that they did not really desire the annexation; and the only reasonable ground there could have been for it was shown by that request not to exist. I think compliance would have been as wise as it would have been just, and would have gone far to smooth away all difficulties. It is, of course, a very different thing now. England cannot give to armed menace what she has refused to peaceful entreaty. Compliance would be even worse than the previous refusal.”
“Well, sir,” urged Margetts, “no one, to be sure, could think that the Boers would ever really get the upper hand in a regular war with England. I speak with all possible respect to Mr Mansen, but that is surely impossible.”
“No one who understands the strength and resources of the two countries could think it possible,” returned Mr Rogers. “But the Boers possess very little information on the subject, and the coloured races still less. They would all think that England yielded now, because her weakness, not her magnanimity, obliged her. But I still trust there will be no war. Enough of this. What is it you have been looking at so intently, Thyrza, for the last ten minutes?”
“I think it is a man on horseback,” said Miss Rivers; “but the object is so far off that I cannot distinguish what it is.”
She pointed as she spoke to a black speck, on the road that led from Winberg to Newcastle, which was moving towards them.
They all watched it for several minutes, and then Mr Mansen said, “You have a long sight, Thyrza. It is a horseman, and he is riding fast. He will pass almost close to us.”