As the weeks went by and the time for the Captain's next visit drew near, Mrs. van Warmelo again and again urged the necessity of putting up the danger-signal (a small block of wood, which was kept ready with a nail through it, lying hidden behind the post), only to be met with an obstinate refusal from her daughter.
"How can you be so reckless and foolhardy, Hansie?" her mother would exclaim. "We know that the men may come in any night, and we know that the house and grounds are being watched, and yet you want me to let our friends run right into the trap, without lifting a finger to save them! It would be an unpardonable thing, and I do believe you are only longing to have the excitement of harbouring spies again!"
Hansie laughed.
"Perhaps that is it! But think of the disappointment of the men to be turned back at our very doors after having come so far through untold dangers! Depend upon it they will not come in again for nothing. They went through too much last time, and there will be work of some importance for us all to do if they come in again, you may be sure of that. No, dear mother, let us risk it, I beg of you. We are still in the house, and Naudé is no chicken. He will reach us in spite of guards and fences, and——"
"Be followed right up to the house and be taken here like a rat in a trap," Mrs. van Warmelo continued gloomily.
"I am not so sure," Hansie exclaimed, as cheerfully as her sinking heart allowed, when this horrible picture rose before her.
"You know what our experience has been of English vigilance and English sagacity; now, if they had some of Carlo's intelligence we would have some reason to be anxious."
The danger-signal was not put up, but that things would have ended exactly as Mrs. van Warmelo predicted I now have not a shadow of doubt.
The spies would have glided into the house in the false security occasioned by the absence of the danger-signal, they would have been watched and followed to the very doors by the hidden foe, the house would have been surrounded and stormed by armed men, and a fierce, an unspeakably horrible encounter would have ended in death and destruction—if they had come. But they were prevented on commando from keeping their appointment that month—and at the very time when they expected to be safely housed under Harmony's hospitable roof, the place was surrounded, an entry forced and every corner of the house searched for spies.
It happened "like so," and we must now turn our attention for a moment to a matter of small importance in order to understand why Hansie was from home at a critical time, and how she missed the keen enjoyment of being present at the "raid."