"Who on earth is making all that row?" was Colvin's first remark on
awakening from sleep the following morning to the well-worn strains of
"Ta-ra-Boomdeay" bellowed in stentorian tones, yet somewhat muffled as
though by distance and obstruction.
"It must be the Englishman--one of the prisoners," yawned another
occupant of the tent, sitting up and rubbing his eyes sleepily. "He is
very violent and noisy, so they have shut him up in Gideon Roux' stable
away from the others."
"Is he mad?"
"No. Only violent. Wants to fight everybody with his fists."
"_Nouwja_. I would cure that `madness' with a _sjambok_ if I were the
Commandant," growled another, sitting up and listening. "He gives all
the trouble he can."
The hour was that of sunrise, and although midsummer, the air at that
altitude was raw and chilly when Colvin turned out, shivering, to look
after his horse, which had been picketed among the steeds of the
burghers. As he did so the sun, mounting above the surrounding heights
into the fresh clear air, seemed to shed around a new hope, to light up
a new exhilaration in his mind. His own atmosphere would clear, even as
the dewy mists of night had done before the great flaming luminary. He
would now seek out the Commandant, explain matters, and resume his way.
And having so decided, he was straightway confronted by a couple of
burghers summoning him to the presence of that official without delay.
Commandant Schoeman was an elderly man with a hard, wooden-faced
expression. He wore a straight lank beard, a chimney-pot hat, once
white, and weather-beaten moleskin clothes, which looked as if they had
not been off him for a month, which indeed was very near the truth. He
was a Boer of the most unprogressive type, and as entirely dissimilar to
one of the stamp of Stephanus De la Rey as could possibly be imagined.
He was lacking in the good qualities of Andries Botma, who, however
fiery and perfervid as a patriotic orator, was a kindly and courteous
gentleman beneath. This man was brusque and uncouth, and cordially
hated everything English, both in season and out of season.
He was seated in his tent as Colvin came up. The flaps were folded back
so that those surrounding him who could not find room inside could still
assist at what was going on in the way of official business. These
consisted almost entirely of Boers holding subordinate commands under
him. They wore their bandoliers, and their rifles lay on the ground
beside them.
"_Daag_, Mynheer Commandant," said Colvin, mindful of the way in which a
greater than this had received a less formal mode of address.
"_Daag_," replied Schoeman curtly, tendering a cold lifeless paw, and
just touching the other's outstretched hand.
The same ceremony was gone through with the others. Two old
acquaintances Colvin recognised--Swaart Jan Grobbelaar and old Sarel Van
der Vyver. These responded to his greeting characteristically--the
first showing his tusks with a sort of oily, half-satirical grin, the
other infusing a heartiness into his reply, and then drawing back as
though half-frightened. There was a third present, however, whom he
recognised--recognised, moreover, with some astonishment--Morkel, the
Civil Commissioner's clerk.
"Hallo, Morkel!" he exclaimed in English. "I never expected to see you.
Why, what on earth are _you_ doing here?"
"I am acting as secretary for the Commandant," answered Morkel, making
believe to be wondrously busy with some papers on the rough wooden table
in front of him. His momentary embarrassment was not lost upon Colvin,
nor a look he fancied he detected, warning him not to ask questions.
"I do not know why we need talk English here," said the Commandant
curtly. "Sit."
Colvin obeyed, and subsided on to the floor of the tent by Swaart Jan,
who made room for him, at the same time offering his tobacco bag, for
they were all smoking. The great man and his "secretary" were the only
ones who occupied seats, and these consisted of inverted packing-cases.
The rest squatted primitively on mother earth.
Then turning to Colvin, the Commandant began to put him through a pretty
close cross-examination, causing Morkel to take down the answers, partly
with a view to impressing the others with his magisterial dignity,
partly from a genuine motive, for he was an illiterate man, and had all
the suspiciousness which characterises such. He questioned Colvin with
regard to all as to which he had been an eye-witness when with Cronje's
force, and with regard to a great deal as to which he had not, the
others listening with vivid interest.
And here Colvin began to feel himself in somewhat of a quandary,
remembering the parting injunctions and warnings of Andries Botma. The
latter had especially cautioned him against revealing matters even to
the burghers on this side of the Orange River, and now the warning rose
clear in his mind. Who could say that there might not be spies among
those here present, or, at any rate, but lukewarm adherents of the
Republican cause? And the result of such misgiving was that his answers
were somewhat constrained, and to the distrustful ears of the Boer
Commandant more than suspicious.
"Be careful, Englishman," said the latter bluntly. "You are telling us
the truth, are you? You had better tell the truth--oh, much better."
The rudeness of the other's words and manner angered Colvin, but he
yielded to the expediency of restraining too great a manifestation of
resentment.
"Look, Mynheer Commandant," he said. "I have been courteously received
by His Honour the President, I can call Andries Botma my friend and Piet
Plessis'"--and he named half a dozen other prominent Transvaal
officers--"but it has remained to me to return here to be called a liar
by a man of whom I never heard before."
"All Englishmen are liars," interpolated a grim old burgher on the
opposite side of the tent, spitting on the ground. Schoeman, however,
received the reply with a wooden-faced silence. But Colvin did not miss
a look of dismay and warning darted at him by Morkel, and at the same
time, with anything but satisfaction, he realised that he had probably
made a deadly enemy of the Commandant.
"Well then," he continued, "the whole square truth of the matter is that
Andries Botma particularly urged upon me not to talk of what I had seen
with Cronje's force, not even on this side of the river. Does that
satisfy all here?" And he looked around the circle.
"_Ja_, _ja_," assented most of them, Swaart Jan adding:
"It is true, Commandant Colvin is a true man. I know him. He is a
friend of `The Patriot'. Besides, he is one of us now. He is going to
marry Stephanus De la Rey's daughter."
"Quite right, Oom Jan," said Colvin, with alacrity. Then, judging that
this was exactly the moment for preferring his request, he represented
to the Commandant that it was while on his way to Ratels Hoek that he
had been detained and brought here. Might he not now proceed thither?
This request was backed up by most of the assembled Boers. Schoeman,
beginning to think it would save trouble, was inclined to yield, when a
contretemps occurred, one of those freaks of fate which have an impish
and arbitrary way of skipping forward just at the right moment to divert
and ruin the course of human affairs when such course is beginning to
run smoothly. A considerable hubbub had arisen outside; curses and
threats in Dutch and English, with the sound of scuffling, and, over and
above all, a voice lifted in song, bellowing stentoriously, if somewhat
jerkily:
"Ta-ra-ra-ra Boomdeay!
Oom Paul op een vark gerij,
Af hij val en rier gekrij,
Toen klim op en weg gerij."
The concluding words were hurled, so to say, right into the tent, for a
group of burghers had appeared, and in their midst was the singer. The
latter was receiving somewhat rough usage--though, truth to tell, he was
bringing it upon himself. His arms were tightly pinioned to his sides
with a long coil of reim, and he was being hustled forward with varying
degrees of roughness. But the more they hustled and cursed him the more
defiantly he shouted his idiotic and, under the circumstances, insulting
doggerel. Colvin, with dismay and consternation, had recognised the
stuff and had recognised the singer, and, even before the latter had
been dragged into sight, knew that it could be no other than Frank
Wenlock. So this was the obstreperous prisoner? Well, Frank Wenlock
could be pretty obstreperous, as he knew by experience.
"Still, man, still!" growled one of his escort, shaking him violently.
Here again was an old acquaintance, in the shape of Hermanus Delport.
But the big Dutchman's face was considerably damaged, one eye being
totally closed. Frank had been using his fists to some purpose. Now he
let off a volley of perfectly unprintable expletives.
"You'd dare lay a finger on me but for this _reim_, wouldn't you?" he
yelled. "I'd plug up your other eye for two pins, and every man's
blanked eyes in this camp." And more to the same effect.
"Still, man, do you hear?" repeated Hermanus, administering another
shake. "The Commandant is speaking to you. Do you hear?"
"Is he? Well, then, I don't care a little damn for Mr bally Commandant
or the whole lot of infernal rebels and traitors in that tent. Aha,
Swaart Jan! you may well look sick, you old liar; there's a nice rope
waiting for you. Old Sarel, too? What a hanging of rebels and traitors
there'll be by-and-by! And Morkel? _Ja_, you will dangle, too." Then
becoming alive to the presence of Colvin, he burst into a very roar of
derisive hatred. "Good-day, Mister Kershaw--or should I say Commandant
Kershaw?--the biggest blanked traitor of the lot. You'll be blown from
a gun, I should think."
These ravings, uttered half in English, half in Dutch, were not without
effect upon most of those within the tent. They had about concluded
that the violence and insolence of this prisoner had reached limits.
"Let him taste the _sjambok_" growled the old burgher who had expressed
the opinion antagonistic to British veracity. But Commandant Schoeman
gave no sign of perturbation. Save for a stern and ominous look in his
cold, snaky eye, he might not have heard.
"Frank--Frank! Do be quiet, man," said Colvin earnestly. "Don't make a
silly ass of yourself. You are doing yourself no good."
"Not, eh? I'd do you some good though if I could get at you; I'd give
you the jolliest hammering you ever had. Look at Mani Delport's mug
there. That's nothing to what yours would be, you infernal traitor."
"It might not be so easy, Frank. But do be reasonable. How can you
expect decent treatment if you will persist in behaving like a lunatic?"
"Would you be reasonable if you had seen your home sacked and gutted by
a lot of rebels and traitors, and your mother turned out homeless,
Mister Dutchman Kruger Kershaw?" snarled Frank. "No fear though. Your
place wasn't interfered with. You're one of them, you know."
Colvin was not disposed to deny this in the faces of those present,
intending to use that very argument in favour of being allowed to
proceed on his way. But he was deeply concerned on behalf of Frank.
The fool was simply committing suicide. Yet--how prevent him? He had
seen Frank very uproarious more than once, in his cups, but here that
motive power was lacking. The silly chap seemed to have gone half off
his head with racial antagonism. But his own endeavours to persuade the
Boer authorities to that effect drew forth a renewed outburst from the
man he was striving to befriend. The Dutch Commandant lost patience.
"Be still, Englishman," he said, very sharply and sternly. "I am going
to speak, and if you open your mouth again until I have finished, you
will have that thrust into it which will quiet you. Well, then, you
were treated no worse than others in your position until you brought
rough treatment upon yourself. You have been as violent; as a drunken
Bastard Hottentot, without his excuse. You have assaulted and struck
our burghers, and you have only opened your mouth to shout out insults
to His Honour the President and horrid blasphemies to Almighty God.
There can be no place for such a man as you among our God-fearing
burghers, and we are not going to release you while so many of our brave
comrades are rotting on your English prison ships. It may be that you
have not many hours left in this world, and I advise you to think over
and ask pardon of Heaven for all your blasphemous words." Then to the
guards, "Take him back whence he came while we deliberate."
"That for your cant, you cursed, whining old snuffle-nose," yelled
Frank, spitting in the direction of the Commandant. "You can shoot me
if you like, but you'll all hang--every man jack of you--infernal rebels
and traitors. Hurrah! God save the Queen!" And thus vociferating, he
was hustled away.
"Do not hold him responsible for what he says or does, Mynheer
Commandant," said Colvin earnestly. "I think his misfortunes have
turned his brain. He was always excitable. We cannot hold a man
responsible when he is off his head, can we?"
To this plea Commandant Schoeman made no reply. He turned a cold, fishy
eye upon the pleader, then remarked to the others:
"_Toen, Heeren_. We had better discuss, under the guidance of Heaven,
what our best course will be with regard to this violent and blasphemous
prisoner. For yourself, Mynheer"--to Colvin--"you would doubtless
prefer the rest and quiet of your tent--or to see if some of your
friends are in our camp."
Colvin promptly acted upon this more than hint. But with all his
anxiety to reach Ratels Hoek, a kind of instinct on Frank Wenlock's
account reconciled him to a further sojourn in Schoeman's camp. He
suspected that Frank stood in grave peril of his life; and if so he must
exert all and whatever influence he himself possessed on behalf of his
friend and former comrade.
His instinct proved an accurate one, and his worst fears were justified.
Not until near evening, however, did he learn that Frank Wenlock had
been sentenced to be shot, and would meet his death at daybreak.