All day long, and in fact for many days after, an unusual commotion was apparent in the Military Camp.
Detectives could be seen coming and going, little groups of soldiers clustered together, and even "Judas-Boers" made their appearance on the lower portion of Harmony, examining the ground and following the tracks made by the spies in their escape from the town.
Beyond that the van Warmelos could not follow their investigations, and whether they found conclusive evidence in the marks made by the men at the closely barbed and netted drift, under the railway bridge, will never be known, but there was reason to believe that the last remaining route of the spies had been discovered. Brave hearts sank at the thought of their probable fate when they tried that route again.
But, thank God! the birds had flown—for the time at least.
That afternoon, when Hansie cycled to Mrs. Joubert's house, the streets were quiet and practically deserted. She was quite sure that no one followed her, for she dropped her handkerchief once and had suddenly to turn and pick it up.
Carlo was some way ahead of her and did not notice the interruption until she was on her bicycle again, when he came tearing back to find out what had happened, furious with himself for having missed the smallest piece of excitement. After that he did not leave her side again, but trotted quietly along, watching her every moment from the corner of his eye.
When Hansie entered the house in Visagie Street, Carlo stretched himself as usual beside her bicycle, ostensibly to sleep, but in reality on guard and alert with every nerve in his quick body. Hansie was thankful to find van der Westhuizen in; in fact, he was expecting her and wished to see her, but did not think it advisable to go to Harmony.
"Tell me all about last night," she said. "Tell me everything, and then I have something to tell you too."
"Well," he said, and the inscrutable face was for once turned to her in frank confidence, "after we left Harmony last night things did not go as smoothly as we expected. It was all right as long as we were in the bush, and we were able to get our heavy parcels through safely, but when we came to the drift we found it strongly guarded. We retreated at once without a sound and lay down in the thick shrubs to wait. The men were nervous and impatient, and after a little while Brenckmann borrowed my residential pass from me and walked on ahead to see if the coast were clear.
"He soon came back and said it was impossible to get through.