A Boer of immense stature, holding in his right hand a formidable sjambok, was leaning against the wheel of one of the carts. He was a magnificent specimen of physical manhood, and the privations that for two long years he had uncomplainingly endured had only served to increase his tremendous muscular strength.
His bronzed and deeply marked features showed a strength of will and determination rare even in that race of obstinate men, the Boers of South Africa.
An immense beard swept his breast, the hair composing it being streaked with gray. When Christian Uys first shouldered his rifle on the outbreak of hostilities he was, comparatively speaking, a young man, but under the sombre folds of the flag of war he had grown prematurely aged and gray.
A young burgher passing with a led horse, with a limping gait, arrested his attention, and awoke him from the train of gloomy reveries he was indulging in.
"Ah, Van Donnop," said the commandant, "I wish to speak to you. What is the matter with your horse?"
The burgher whom he addressed was a sprightly young fellow of nineteen, strongly made, and as agile as the springbok he had hunted from youth upwards.
"It is lame, Commandant," answered the youth. "One of its pasterns is split. I do not think it will be able to travel farther. And my favourite horse, too. I am very sorry, for it has been mine since it was a foal."
"I too am sorry, Piet," said the officer in a sympathising tone of voice. "We are greatly in need of horses."
The commandant stooped down and examined the horse's hoofs, after which he looked up and remarked in a grave tone of voice, "A bad case, Piet. The poor brute must be killed."
A crimson flush surged up into the face of the young burgher, and he exclaimed excitedly, "Do not ask me to kill her, Commandant! She was my mother's gift to me when I was sixteen. I am hoping to leave her at my father's farm and obtain another mount in her place."