“How the deuce did you get a pass?” put in another man with a face like a weasel. He was what is known as a Boer vernuker (literally a “Boer cheater”), that is, a travelling trader whose business it is to beguile the simple-minded Dutchman by selling him worthless goods at five times their value. “I have loads of friends among the Boers. There is hardly a Boer in the Transvaal who does not know me”—(“To his cost,” put in a bystander with a grunt)—“and yet I have tried all I know”—(“And you know a good deal,” said the same rude man)—“and I can’t get a pass.”
“You don’t suppose those poor Boers are going to let you out once they have got you in?” went on the tormentor. “Why, man, it’s against human nature. You’ve got all their wool: now do you think they want you to have their skin too?”
Whereupon the weasel-faced individual uttered a howl of wrath, and pretended to make a rush at the author of these random gibes, waiting halfway for somebody to stop him and prevent a breach of the peace.
“Oh, Miss Croft!” cried out a woman in the crowd, who, like Jess, had been trapped in Pretoria while on a flying visit, “if you can, do send a line to my husband at Maritzburg, to tell him that I am well, except for the rheumatism from sleeping on the wet ground; and tell him to kiss the twins for me.”
“I say, Niel, tell those Boers that we will give them a d—d good hiding yet, when Colley relieves us,” sang out a jolly young Englishman in the uniform of the Pretoria Carbineers. He little knew that poor Colley—kind-hearted English gentleman that he was—lay sleeping peacefully under six feet of ground with a Boer bullet in his brain.
“Now, Captain Niel, if you are ready, we must trek,” said one of the Boers in Dutch, suiting the action to the word by giving the near wheeler a sharp cut with his riding sjambock that made him jump nearly out of the traces.
Away started the horses with a plunge, scattering the crowd to the right and left, and, amid a volley of farewells, they were off upon their homeward journey.
For more than an hour nothing particular happened. John drove at a fair pace, and the two Boers cantered along behind. At the end of this time, however, just as they were approaching the Red House, where Frank Muller had obtained the pass from the General on the previous day, one of the Boers rode up and told them, roughly enough, that they were to outspan at the house, where they would find some food. As it was past one o’clock, they were by no means sorry to hear this, and John drew up the cart about fifty yards from the place, where they outspanned the horses, and, having watched them roll and drink, they went up to the house.
The two Boers, who had also off-saddled, were already sitting on the verandah, and when Jess looked inquiringly towards them one of them pointed with his pipe towards the little room. Taking the hint, they entered, and found a Hottentot woman just setting some food upon the table.
“Here is dinner; let us eat it,” said John; “goodness knows when we will get any more;” and accordingly he sat down.