g suicide."

"Would it be any use if I were to try and talk over Schoeman? Might
persuade him to let the chap off with a bit of a fright. I am in with
some of the big bugs up at Pretoria, you know."

"Not an atom of use," said Morkel decidedly. "You are in fairly bad
odour yourself, you see, Kershaw."

"It's ghastly. I can't believe they really intend to shoot the poor
chap. But, by-the-by, Morkel, how is it you are up here among them? I
thought you were so rigidly--er--Imperialist?"

Morkel looked embarrassed.

"So I am--er--was, I mean," he answered, speaking low. "But it's all
Jelf's fault. He took on a fad to collect the state of feeling among
the farmers, and was always wanting me to go round and find it out. I
went once too often; for when Olivier and Schoeman crossed from the Free
State, and the whole of the Wildschutsberg and the Rooi-Ruggensberg rose
as one man, why they simply commandeered me."

"But as a Government servant--"

"_Ja_--a fat lot they cared about the Government servant part of it. A
man of my name could not be on the English side, they said. So they
just gave me my choice--to join them or be shot as a spy. I was a spy,
of course, they swore. They knew I had been sent out by the Civil
Commissioner to find out things. So there it was."

"But it'll come rather awkward for you when all this is over, Morkel?"

"I'll have to chance that. It, at any rate, is a chance, but the other
was a dead cert. _Maagtig_! Kershaw, when you see half a dozen fellows
with rifles step out, all ready to let daylight through you in ten
minutes' time, why you prefer the chances of the remote future to the
certainty of the immediate present. If you don't think so--why, you
just find yourself in my shoes, and see."

This was undeniable--and then the _ci-devant_ Civil Commissioner's clerk
went on to explain that he was by no means certain that things were
going to turn out so favourably for the English as had at first seemed
probable. The Republics might get the better of it practically, in
which event he would likely drop in for something worth having--anyway,
he couldn't help himself. Besides, it would have happened in any case,
for the burghers had jumped Schalkburg and commandeered every man there
who bore a Dutch name, as well as all the stores. But with regard to
the De la Rey household Morkel could give no reliable information. He
had heard that Stephanus and his wife were away in the