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 c