All were silent in that room where so much had been spoken.
For a few moments longer they sat still. Then the members of the Republics, which had now ceased to be, rose up as if dazed, to retire from the hall.
Lord Kitchener passed from one to the other, and shook hands with all. "We are good friends now!" he said.
Did this give him satisfaction? Did no dart of pain, no pang of sorrow, pass through his heart at the thought that he had taken a great share in the extinction of a free people?
But he spoke as a soldier should to a brave enemy who had been forced to give up his sword; and the members of the Governments strove to take what he said in the spirit in which it was spoken. But their hearts were broken.
Then they left the hall.
EPILOGUE
Do I feel any remorse, now that all is over, because I struggled on to the end? Is there any feeling of regret in me, when I look back, that I persisted even when I sometimes thought that there was no hope—when, as at Nauwpoort in the dark last days of July 1900, and several times after, I thought that all was lost? No, nothing troubles me. On the contrary, whilst I am writing this I am experiencing an indescribable feeling of satisfaction—something that tells me, You have—very inefficiently, it is true—but yet you have endeavoured to do your duty.
I constantly felt that as long as my Government stood it was not for me to ask why or wherefore—
"Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die."