Russian Prince, the French socialist from La Villette or Montmartre, with
a red sash around his velveteen breeches, and the little French nobleman
from the Cercle Royal who had never before felt the sun, except when he
had played lawn tennis on the Isle de Puteaux. Each had his bandolier
and rifle; each was minding his own business, which was the business of
all--to try and save the independence of a free people.

The presence of these foreigners, with rifle in hand, showed the
sentiment and sympathies of the countries from which they came. These
men were Europe's real ambassadors to the Republic of the Transvaal. The
hundreds of thousands of their countrymen who had remained at home held
toward the Boer the same feelings, but they were not so strongly moved;
not so strongly as to feel that they must go abroad to fight.

These foreigners were not the exception in opinion, they were only
exceptionally adventurous, exceptionally liberty-loving. They were not
soldiers of fortune, for the soldier of fortune fights for gain. These
men receive no pay, no emolument, no reward. They were the few who dared
do what the majority of their countrymen in Europe thought.

At Jones's Hotel that night, at Ventersburg, it was as though a jury
composed of men from all of Europe and the United States had gathered in
judgment on the British nation.

Outside in the moonlight in the dusty road two bearded burghers had
halted me to ask the way to the house of the commandant. Between them on
a Boer pony sat a man, erect, slim-waisted, with well-set shoulders and
chin in air, one hand holding the reins high, the other with knuckles
down resting on his hip. The Boer pony he rode, nor the moonlight, nor
the veldt behind him, could disguise his seat and pose. It was as though
I had been suddenly thrown back into London and was passing the
cuirassed, gauntleted guardsman, motionless on his black charger in the
sentry gate in Whitehall. Only now, instead of a steel breastplate, he
shivered through his thin khaki, and instead of the high boots, his legs
were wrapped in twisted putties.

"When did they take you?" I asked.

"Early this morning. I was out scouting," he said. He spoke in a voice
so well trained and modulated that I tried to see his shoulder-straps.

"Oh, you are an officer?" I said.

"No, sir, a trooper. First Life Guards."

But in the moonlight I could see him smile, whether at my mistake or
because it was not a mi