"I know him well, sir," put in Jack Lovat, anticipating Piet's reply. "He was kind to me when I was captured by the Boers. You will be lenient with him, sir?"
Invited by Colonel Malcolmson to say what he knew about the prisoner, Jack told the officers of the friendship that had existed between the two families before hostilities began, and begged the colonel to be lenient with Piet. He urged that the young Dutchman, like many other settlers in Cape Colony, had been led astray by Boer emissaries.
Before being dismissed by the council, Piet felt that his life would be safe. He knew that by the rules of civilised warfare, he, as a rebel, had no claim to clemency, and noted with gratitude Jack Lovat's appeal on his behalf.
The Boer prisoners had been temporarily imprisoned in the largest ostrich kraal, and a guard of twenty troopers with loaded rifles placed over them. Several of the burghers were sleeping off the effects of their late carouse, so that the task of guarding them was a comparatively easy one.
Pat O'Neill now assumed full authority as foreman of the Kopje Farm, and with more swagger than was perhaps absolutely necessary, chaffed the Boers about their inability to hold a little ostrich farm. Nor were his eyes and hands idle.
"The dirthy beggars!" muttered Pat. "They're fond av loot, an' why should not Pat O'Neill, late av the ould 24th, not follow suit?" And to Pat's credit be it said, he proved a competent detective.
Towards evening, Colonel Malcolmson set off in pursuit of Commandant Uys's scattered commando, and to his great satisfaction, our friend Morton, now a full-blown sergeant—a rank conferred by Colonel Malcolmson on the field—was left in command of the guard, entrusted with the defence of the Kopje Farm, and the due supervision of the Boer prisoners recently captured.
CHAPTER XI
DIAMONDS GALORE
The troopers left in charge of the Kopje Farm, after the rest of the Rangers departed, had many reasons why they should congratulate themselves on their admirable temporary quarters. The New Zealanders for months had lived "hard," as it is termed in soldier language. Now they were, as a trooper expressed it, "in clover."