Then came another trial. One afternoon, at about three o’clock, they suddenly came to tell me that I must start for Mafeking with my daughter in half-an-hour.
“And what about my other children then?” I asked.
“Have you got more children still?” asked the man.
I called all my children together.
“Very well,” he went on then, “you can take all your children with you.”
“And for what reasons am I being sent away in this fashion?”
“When General De la Rey was here you took him in and sheltered him.”
“Yes,” I answered, “I did take him in and shelter him; and I shall do it five hundred times more if it please the Lord to spare him. I am prepared to go away as a prisoner of war, but I will not do it of my own free will. And you say to Lord Methuen that he knows very well that my husband is only fighting for his rights and doing his best for his country. I will tell you a parable for him. Instead of doing harm to our cause, every step you take against us makes it one hundredfold stronger. Where only one now calls for vengeance, hundreds shall come to be avenged. He can send me wherever he likes, but it will not do you any good. I never thought to be so badly treated in the Queen’s name. I could not have believed that because you cannot get the better of our men you would set to work against their women.”
“Well,” he said, “I must not talk too much, for we have very little time.” With that he left me and went to Lord Methuen; but he soon came back again, and then said that I had not been ordered to leave the place, but that it would be better for me if I were to do so.
“No, I do not think that it would be better for me to go away from my own land. I would choose far rather to stay and suffer with my own people than go away.”