After all, in spite of Mrs. Joubert's vexation with the reckless youth, she was thankful to know that some one was going out to Skurveberg with a warning to the Secret Service.
Erasmus had to leave without the horse-shoe nails, because, though J. Joubert hunted all over the town, he could not procure enough to send out.
The stores sold them only to the military and blacksmiths, and the latter were curious to know why he did not bring his horses to them to be shod.
Mother and daughter were there at 5.30 p.m., with their parcels, and at 6 p.m. the spies were to leave, Mrs. Malan and van der Westhuizen driving out with them as far as they could.
That was a real danger, compared with which all other risks were as nothing, to drive through the streets of Pretoria with spies, at a time when everyone was liable to be stopped to produce residential passes and to show permits for horses and carriages.
But, indeed, those women were not to be intimidated by anything!
We have now come to a morning into which many events of disastrous importance were crowded, the fateful September 9th. Before breakfast, an agitated girl, unknown at Harmony, arrived with the intelligence that Mr. Willem Botha had been arrested at 8 o'clock the night before.
No other names were mentioned then, but it was felt instinctively that the entire Secret Committee had been betrayed and arrested, and the news, when it reached Harmony during the course of the day, found mother and daughter to some extent prepared. The shock, nevertheless, was so great, so crushing, that it took them some time to recover sufficiently to form a plan of action.
Hansie hastily swallowed some food and was preparing to go to town, when her mother asked her what she meant to do, whether she had thought of anything, or if it was advisable to show herself at all just then.
"I don't know what I am going to do afterwards, mother," she said, "but I am going straight to Mrs. Botha now."