Immediately the door opened, and they entered.
An underground hall of four hundred feet spread before them, in which were assembled a number of men.
It was lighted like the lobby by electricity, and lined, floor, ceiling, walls, and doors, with felt. At the far end were placed three targets, and all round on racks, from floor to ceiling, were rifles. Not thirty thousand, but over a hundred thousand weapons, were here placed ready for use.
Along two sides were placed a row of maxim guns. Ted counted thirty to each side. He also noticed that there were several doors at different parts of this vast gallery.
Philip Martin saw their amazement, and smiled again.
“You see we are not altogether so much at the mercy of the Boers as they fondly imagine. That door to your right leads off to our magazine, where we have sufficient ammunition for our purpose. That other door on your left leads to a tunnel which we are at present engaged in boring. When finished it will take us into the fort where Kruger has fixed his Krupps. We are more than two-thirds on the way now. Those other doors are exits, and lead to different parts of the city. Oh yes, when next we rise, if we are forced, it shall not be against our wives and children that the fort guns will be discharged. We’ll use them for another purpose, and be much obliged to Oom Paul for his valuable gift.”
Philip Martin was treating these young novices as if they were sage men, which proved his knowledge of human nature. If you wish a boy to act like a man, treat him like a man, and respect his amour propre.
He was showing them round as if they were distinguished visitors, and opening his mind to them with a frankness that won their hearts completely. It flattered their self-respect and quickened their reflective faculties. They felt that they were expected to feel, speak, and act like the men they were amongst, and whose lives were entrusted to their discretion.
Then they become grave, attentive, and observant, and got into the proper mood for the work that lay before them. In England men are apt to underrate boys, therefore they grow slowly. Napoleon never made this mistake, but then he was young himself when he became a man, and moulded his ideas from the youthful heroes of the great past.
Philip Martin, like Napoleon, had the timely quality of being able to appreciate young men. He knew from experience that heroism comes more natural to a youth than to a sage. Johannesburg had been chock-a-block with prudent sages during the last conspiracy, which had so miserably failed. He meant to work with enthusiasts this time—have men who needed curbing instead of urging.