"Still this leniency may be only a blind, Hansie. It is painful not to know how much the enemy knows."
"What will you do if Captain Naudé and Mr. Greyling come in to-night?" Hansie asked.
"Shelter them, of course!" was the undaunted reply.
That night as Hansie lay on her sleepless pillow, she felt as if all the batteries of the gold mines were thumping on her heart.
Mrs. Malan's last words to her rang continually in her ears:
"Willie Botha will be executed without a doubt."
But before day dawned Hansie's heart was at rest and she slept, for she had solved the problem in her mind.
She would go to General Maxwell and plead with him for the life of her friend.
He was human and tender-hearted, that she knew, and she would tell him how an innocent young life hung in the balance, how the lives of both mother and child would be imperilled if such a cruel fate befell the father. If her pleadings were of no avail, she would offer to give, in exchange for his life, the name of one well known to her as a dangerous enemy to the English.