"Oh, he had an awful time here. There are khakis and handsuppers living all round his house, to some of whom he is well known by sight. It was found necessary to conceal him, and for three days and two nights the poor boy was stowed away in a tiny attic, just under the corrugated-iron roof and hardly large enough to hold a man. There he lay in the suffocating heat of those endless days, only coming out at night for a few hours like the bats and owls. No, he won't trouble us again!"
Before she left she told him what had been arranged about a sign on the gatepost and asked van der Westhuizen to warn her friends of the "inner circle" that Harmony was no longer a safe place to visit, begging them to keep this information to themselves, "because," she added, "the enemy must not know that we know." Later on she hoped to see him again when the time approached for Naudé to come again, but she advised him not to visit Harmony unnecessarily, as much would depend on him in the event of a raid on Harmony and the transportation of its inhabitants to other regions.
I can only say in conclusion of this chapter that the friends of the "inner circle," Mrs. Malan, Mrs. Joubert, Mrs. Armstrong, Mrs. Honey, and a few others, bravely scorned the idea of avoiding Harmony.
"Why should we not come?" Mrs. Armstrong asked, with her cheerful, ever-ready laugh; "don't other people come here still?"
"Oh yes, but——"
"Then why not we? The more the better, say I! Surely we cannot all be arrested and sent away!"