alled 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