Although our heroes had been brought up amidst the comforts and
refinements of better-class English life, they were not fastidious.
Their recent overland experience among the burgher farmers had taken a
good deal of the fine edge off their susceptibilities as to eating,
drinking, and lodgment. It had also opened their eyes considerably as
to the inconsistency of humanity. Those bare, dirty, and barn-like
homesteads which satisfied the Boers generation after generation, and
compared to which many of the huts of the Kaffirs were fragrant--the
cow-dung and blood-blended plaster and flooring--were, to say the least,
peculiar in their aroma to the nostrils of strangers. Added to this,
the strong flavour of the Boer tobacco, with which those dens reeked,
rendered the atmosphere more powerful than pleasant to any except a Boer
family. To them, however, it smelt home-like and grateful.
Outside, the approaches to a Boer farm were kept in a state of absolute
and traditional disregard to all sanitary laws. The refuse and decay
teemed with disease and abomination. No wanderer required a candle in
the window to light them to these abodes of the dopper. Their olfactory
organs would have been quick enough, even while suffering under the most
virulent cold, for at least half a league distant. Wherever the Boer
settled, that part of the veldt became a pigsty.
Our heroes had experienced all this, and become case-hardened against
unholy perfumes and disgusting sights. Their digestive organs had also
become used to the tough biltong, vile coffee, and unvaried nightly
stews. Thus they were able to stand a good deal of dirt and discomfort
without noticing details.
They had also gained a considerable insight of the Boers' other
peculiarities. Their utter lack of humour and sullen stolidity; their
merciless barbarity to their servants and cattle, joined to their stern
and one-sided religious fervour. The Bible, the cowhide, and the rifle
were always kept handy for constant use by those pious dopper farmers.
The word of God for themselves and families. The cowhide for their
cattle and servants, and the rifle where the cowhide failed to convince.
They had seen these farmers flog the Kaffirs within an inch of their
lives for the slightest offence, or perhaps because the master was in a
bad temper, and the Kaffir chanced to be in his road. They had seen
them bring out their guns, if the braced-up and lacerated natives looked
nasty, and deliberately shoot them dead, then go indoors immediately
after, read their Bibles, sing their psalms, and thank the Lord of hosts
for giving them grace. Their infernal cruelties never touched their
consciences in the slightest degree, and they had no fear of the laws of
the land condemning them. Each Boer made his own laws, and these were
merciless. There was no justice for the native; he was a beast to be
down-trodden and enslaved. His land and his life were theirs, the
chosen people of the Lord, to abuse or murder as they pleased.
Yet they never neglected family worship. Nor would they permit the
stranger to go from them without reading a chapter, and delivering
themselves of an unctuous prayer. Sylvan life amongst the pious doppers
was very unlovely and revolting.
Having already experienced so much, the young men hardly noticed the
filthy and disgraceful conditions of the Johannesburg tronk, or jail.
That they were crammed into a small cell of ten by twenty feet, along
with twenty-five other prisoners, was nasty; yet they endured this fate
with as much philosophy as they could.
Twenty-eight prisoners, waiting their trial, were immured in this
suffocating, dark, and noisome den, which could be compared with nothing
else than the hold of a slaver, or the black hole of Calcutta. A third
of these were Kaffir women, and the majority of the rest, the vilest and
most foul-mouthed scum in Johannesburg.
There was no separation of the sexes; they were all crushed together,
regardless of their ages or offences. The atmosphere was horrible, for
there was no other ventilation than what the opening of the door gave.
It was opened occasionally by the warders as they thought fit, to give
the captives a little air and prevent suffocation.
The floors were cemented, and the roof of corrugated iron; but as water
is a luxury in Johannesburg, and the Boers are averse to washing and
also are regardless of dirt, weeks if not months had passed since last
the accumulations had been shovelled out. The mind of an Englishman at
home could not conjure up any idea approaching this abomination of
stench and overpowering heat.
Here our heroes had spent their first night of Boer prison life,
listening, or rather trying to shut their ears, to the groans, curses,
and obscenities of their fellow-captives. Packed closely together, they
were forced to stand still and upright, with the perspiration pouring
from them, and swallow the poison that entered their lungs instead of
air.
Many--indeed, most--of these prisoners had broken heads and other
wounds, and these, clotted and untended, added to the disgusting
horrors.
When morning came, and they were hustled into the Pretoria train, they
felt almost half dead. Faint and breathless, they gasped as they were
dragged into the court, and listened to the charges with dull apathy.
There was little enough fight in them now.
By the time they reached Pretoria, however, their young constitutions,
aided by the fresh veldt air, had restored both their appetites and
their courage. In spite of their jailors' grunts of disapproval, they
were laughing and jesting more from bravado than through good spirits.
"We must show them we are game, no matter what happens to us," said Ned;
and his chums' loyalty backed him up.
In the same train, but in a different compartment, Stephanus Groblaar
and the wounded and battered Zarps travelled to give their evidence.
The boys caught a glimpse of Stephanus as he got out, and could not help
enjoying the sight. The baton had smashed the bridge of his nose and
spoilt what little beauty he possessed. He was marked for life, so that
they would recognise him under any disguise almost. They caught his one
eye glaring luridly on Ned, for the other was bandaged up, and they
grinned broadly as they were pushed past.
They were marched along to the tronk, getting hasty glimpses of the
Dopper Kirk, where Oom Paul sometimes preaches; the frowning forts and
warlike batteries which he has erected at so much expense to his
insolvent government, as a sign of the friendly disposition of the
Volksraad towards the Uitlander, and the open gallows and stocks, which
also were tokens of the social advancement of the constitution. That
church obstructing the traffic was typical of the people's wisdom and
foresight, as their town lying in the swamp was. They doted on mud and
pestilential swamps, as they piously believed in obstruction, dirt, bad
drainage, and public executions.
The Pretoria tronk--at least, the part into which our heroes were
locked--was a shade more endurable than had been their lodging of the
night before. Morality, if not sanitary arrangements, was slightly more
observed.
Their cell, which was the same size as the last, was not quite so
crowded, and they had white companions only, and of their own sex.
Between them and the Kaffirs was a sheet of corrugated iron.
Small holes were bored in the sheet-iron walls; these were, however,
close to the roof, and did not give them much fresh air. During the day
the heat was intense, as the thin iron became almost red-hot under the
sun-glare. At night it was in proportion cold.
There had been thirty-five prisoners in this cell two days before, but
eighteen of these had been removed; thus they had only seventeen
companions waiting their sentences. Fortunately, also, the majority of
these prisoners were respectable citizens, whose crimes were as yet to
be invented. Like our heroes, they had been seized upon without any
pretext, without being aware yet of the charges. They would learn all
that at the time appointed by their tyrants.
Small straw mattresses were given to them to sleep on at nights; these
were placed side by side along the walls, leaving a narrow gangway
between. These mattresses had served hundreds of prisoners before them;
they were dirty in the extreme, worn by holes, and infested by other
inhabitants beside themselves, that not only did not sleep when darkness
fell, but did their best to murder sleep. A Salvation Army
night-shelter might be as lively, but it could not be worse than were
those unhallowed beds. They were placed upon the ground, and each
morning were taken out and aired in the exercise-yard. Otherwise the
cells were devoid of furniture. There were neither seats nor tables.
All that afternoon the prisoners sat looking on the ground, as far away
from the heated walls as they could get. As they had come in time for
dinner, they got a basin of thin soup with some hard meat and black
bread. This they devoured eagerly. At four o'clock they had a supper
of mealie with salt and water. Then their beds were brought in, and
they prepared to enjoy themselves. They were able to breathe; that was
the sole comfort of that shivering night. Being dog-tired with their
previous night's vigil, in spite of the tormentors that bit and stung
them incessantly, our heroes soon fell asleep and forgot their miseries.
In the morning at seven o'clock they got another dose of mealie-porridge
and salt with water. Then they were allowed to go and wash themselves
in the muddy streams that ran through the yard. All the prisoners were
turned out to the yard at the same time. Kaffirs, Malays, and whites,
thieves, murderers, and political prisoners, they were all mixed up like
their mattresses, and permitted to wash their clothes and themselves in
the same muddy stream together.
On this day they were allowed to stay in the yard until five o'clock,
and as it was about one hundred and fifty feet, they were able to take
good exercise and have fresh air. They were not long before they began
to play leap-frog and some other games, including a wrestling match
between Ned and Fred, which was watched with keen interest by the other
prisoners.
At about half-past two they were pleasantly surprised by a visit from
Philip Martin, who brought with him a Pretoria solicitor.
Both listened to the story of their arrest, and the lawyer took notes,
after which Philip said--
"I think we shall manage to square the Zarps, so that they will let you
off mildly. The man with the broken jaw we must give a golden plaster
to; but your most bitter witness will be Stephanus Groblaar. He will
have his knife into you, and swear anything against you. His father is
a personal friend and tool of the president."
That night they did not sleep so well; on the whole, it was the most
uncomfortable time they had ever experienced. They were glad when
daylight came and the doors opened to let them out.
They were first in the yard, and took advantage to be the first in the
stream before it was stirred up. After their bath they once more felt
ready to laugh at their discomforts and woes.
They had hardly supped their porridge, when a couple of German policemen
came and marched them off solemnly.
Outside the tronk half a dozen more stiff and wooden-looking bodyguards
were drawn up, armed to the teeth with rifles, swords, and revolvers.
They closed in upon our heroes without a word, merely pointing to the
front as their way to march. Ned, Fred, and Clarence drew themselves up
with dignity, seeing that no attempt was made to handcuff them, and
dusting their clothes with their handkerchiefs, stepped out proudly in
the middle of their formidable escort. Handcuffs sadly spoil the effect
of dignity. They make a prisoner look too pathetic.
"I wonder where these Noah's Ark Johnnies are taking us to?" said Ned.
"To the court to be tried, I expect," answered Fred.
"No," said Clarence. "There is some other game going on with us. Don't
you see these are not the ordinary Boer bobbies? They are the
president's own bodyguards."
"By Jove! so they are. Perhaps old Kruger is going to interview us. I
hope so, for I'd like to see the grand old humbug."
"Hush! These fellows are sure to understand English. All Germans do
who leave their own country."
If they did understand what Ned had so rashly said, they showed no sign.
All emotion seemed to have been drilled out of their big faces, as all
free action had been drilled out of their tall figures.
Solemnly they marched to the word of command with heads jerked up and
immovable eyes. Right, left, right, left, they planted their feet as
one man, without making a single wrinkle in their coats. They were for
all the world exactly like exaggerated German metal soldiers set working
by mechanism, and newly painted.
Down through the centre of Church Street they marched, the automatic
movements of the guards so infecting our heroes that they unconsciously
fell into the same step after a few paces. Then only one distinct tramp
could be heard, as each left or right foot crushed upon the ground. The
people on the side paths watched them going along curiously.
Past the grand Government buildings, with that disputed statue to
Liberty on its centre tower, they strode. The enlightened burghers
greatly object to this statue, as they don't believe in a woman
representing freedom, and think it must either mean Her Britannic
Majesty or the Virgin Mary, both highly objectionable personages in a
dopper's eye.
On they marched, until they reached the western end of the street, where
a verandahed house stood with tall trees in front of it, and on each
side of the gate a helmeted police-soldier. Then they knew where they
were coming to, and felt a tremor pass over them. They were approaching
the kraal of the savage and crafty tyrant chief of the Transvaal,
Kruger.