The Boer thus spoken to dismounted from his panting steed, and exclaimed, "We have finished off a lot of the rooineks, but"—this was added in a whisper—"a big force of them is advancing on this place. The commandant has ordered the other section of the commando to scatter, and afterwards concentrate near Doom Spruit. Commandant Uys has told us to acquaint you with the news, and also to ask you not to hold the farm, as the Rangers will attempt to retake it, even if it costs them many men."
Field-cornet Maestral was a man endowed with a large bump of cautiousness, and after listening to the scout's statement, he with some difficulty assembled his section of the commando and addressed a few words to them. His quick eye noticed that the potent spirit imbibed by nearly all his burghers had taken effect and that their gait was unsteady.
The Boer officer told the burghers the news he had just received from the scout Emil Behrens, who stood by his side, and informed them that it was his intention to evacuate the farm. Loud cries of dissent arose, and as Maestral did not possess the personality of a De Wet, he naturally felt, and was, powerless in the hands of his burghers.
Meanwhile a strange action was being performed by Pat O'Neill. The Dutch settler who built the Kopje Farm had during its erection constructed several large cellars, the ramifications of which extended under many of the rooms as well as the ostrich kraal.
The element of fear had no place in Pat's mental constitution, and while the field-cornet was addressing his men, the Irishman disappeared. Through a secret trap-door in a corner of the storeroom floor, he descended into the enormous cellar. From his pocket he took out a small lantern in which was a piece of tallow candle. He carefully lighted the candle, and placed the lantern within a niche in the wall.
Three large barrels stood in a corner of the cellar, and the barrel lids were removed by Pat without any difficulty, for the simple reason that the worthy Irishman had seen to a little necessary "prising" process soon after Major Salkeld's men had left in the morning.
With a large scoop, Pat began to bale out a black substance on the floor. The substance was gunpowder! Quite coolly the Rorke's Drift man laid a train leading from the barrels to the foot of the ladder, and with grim satisfaction viewed his work in the dim light.
"Bedad!" he muttered, "this will give the spalpeens a shock worse than King James av ancient memory might av got." Then taking out a long piece of gutta-percha fuse, he inserted one end in the train of powder, and ascended the ladder steps carrying the other end of the fuse with him. This end he fixed between the interstice formed by the floor and the trap-door.
Pat was just in time to see a little of the fun going on between the field-cornet and his burghers, and chuckled gleefully to himself.
Several gray-haired doppers were backing up their leader's proposal that the farm should be evacuated, but the fumes of the whisky were seething in the noddles of the majority of the Boers, and their only longing was to get more of the potent spirit, regardless of consequences.