They had killed puff adders and other deadly snakes on their way, and had got over their shuddering horror for those obnoxious reptiles. They had also seen the best side of the Boer character, and had commenced to experience the other side—the Boer in power, with their countrymen under his feet.
It was a new and a disagreeable experience to those proud young Britons to find their countrymen in the condition of serfs and door-mats, with clumsy and ignorant clowns tramping over them ruthlessly. As they walked through the streets of Johannesburg, and saw at every step evidences of the misrule of that hypocritical and false tyrant, Kruger, they felt a natural and deep disgust towards the Englishmen who had permitted such a condition of things to exist.
They met gangs of Boers swaggering about fully armed, and jeering at the unarmed citizens. They saw Britons, or what looked like their countrymen, sneaking about and meekly eating the leek. Their generous young blood boiled within them as they looked up at the guns which the hoary tyrant of the Transvaal had planted on the fort to overawe the city. They felt as if they were inside the walls of a big prison, and every instinct within them moved towards rebellion.
From the moment they caught sight of that fort, with the guns dominating the streets, they were filled with a hatred towards the Boers and a quenchless desire for slaughter.
“I wonder what our people out here are made of to stand this sort of thing?” murmured Ned, as he looked at his chums’ blazing eyes. “Surely some of them have enough of the old blood left to risk it for the sake of liberty.”
“I’ll not be able to stand it long,” answered Clarence, with a deep-drawn breath.
“Nor can I,” said Fred.
“It will be a lark if we are destined to light the spark,” continued Ned, musingly. “I think we could get over these walls some dark night without much trouble. Oh, let’s get on, boys, or I’ll be after having a try now,” he added impatiently, as he strode hastily forward.
“There, now, who do you think you are shoving against?” he cried angrily, as he ran against a pair of burghers who were coming round a corner.
It was Ned who had been at fault in his haste. In any other place he would have apologised, but seeing that they were Boers, he pushed them off the footpath and then turned to abuse them. It was the natural protest of a free man against unaccustomed tyranny. With those Krupp guns behind them, politeness looked like submission and fear. Fortunately for the safety of that billet in Ned’s boot, which he had for the moment forgotten, these burghers were good-tempered and stolid Dutchmen, who didn’t mind either a push or a cross word. They merely laughed boisterously, and passed on their way.