THE WATCHWORD. OILING THE HINGES
Three weeks went uneventfully by.
Visitors at Harmony were few and far between, for the story of the "raid" went quickly through the town, and many people who had been in the habit of visiting the van Warmelos, all unsuspecting of the cloud under which they rested, took alarm at this first open hint of danger and discreetly withdrew from the scene.
When Hansie thought of them it was with some contempt and bitterness, but her mind was, at the time, occupied with more important matters, and her fair-weather friends soon passed from her life, never to return again.
Only about a dozen remained, mostly women, friends staunch and true, upon whom one could depend through days of the most crushing adversity.
How close we came to one another in those days only those who have been through similar experiences can ever realise.
Those three uneventful weeks were by no means the least trying of the long war. Sorely tested nervous systems were giving way, fine constitutions were being broken down, and powers of resistance had reached their limit. It needed but the acute anxiety and intense strain of the last adventure which I am about to relate, to reduce our heroines to a state bordering on the hysterical.
The phases of the moon were watched in suspense, and when the time drew near for the next visit from the spies, Mrs. van Warmelo took the precaution of locking Carlo up in the kitchen before retiring for the night. Although she let him out very early every morning in order not to arouse the suspicions of the servants, "Gentleman Jim," ever on the alert, soon found out that something unusual was taking place.
"Why you lock up the dog every night, missis?" he inquired one morning.
Mrs. van Warmelo was completely taken by surprise, but answered with great presence of mind: