rectly and find himself
back again at Pretoria, or at Ratels Hoek, or his own farm? He looked
around. Was he really awake--or was this, too, only another nightmare?
Ah no. It was very real.

About his worldly affairs he felt but scant anxiety. They were all in
order. He was a fairly methodical man, and before leaving for the
theatre of battle and hourly risk he had seen to all that. After all,
some would be the gainers by his end--some perhaps who needed to be,
very sorely--some who would even in consequence remember him with a
little kindness and gratitude. Yet there was but little of the last in
this world, he reflected, tolerantly cynical.

The sun dropped, and the shadows of evening darkened his place of
confinement, and then with the deepening gloom a feeling of great
desolation came over the man, a feeling of forsakenness, and that never
again would his ears receive a word of sympathy or friendship, let alone
love. He hungered for such then. It was the bitterest moment he had
known yet. Seated there on an old wheelbarrow in the close, fusty
smelling stable, with the long night before him, he well-nigh regretted
that he had been allowed the extension of time. It would all have been
over by now. He would have sunk to rest with the evening's sun. Then
upon the black gloom of his mind came the consciousness of approaching
voices--then the rattle and rasping of the padlock, and the door was
opened. One of the guards entered, ushering in three men. He was
bearing, moreover, a lantern and a chair, which having set down, he
retired.

By the somewhat dingy light of the lantern Colvin recognised his
visitors: Schoeman, Jan Grobbelaar, and the _predikant_. He greeted the
last-named, with whom he was already acquainted. Then a thrill of hope
went through his heart. Had they thought better of it and were here to
offer him deliverance?

"We have given your case every consideration, nephew," began the
Commandant in his dry, emotionless, wooden tones. "You have professed
yourself one of us, and by way of proving yourself to be so have
committed the act of a traitor, in that you have set one of our enemies
at large."

"Pardon me, Mynheer Commandant," interrupted Colvin. "I have done no
such thing. I deny it here on the brink of the grave. I will be candid
enough to say that I might have done so had it been in my power. But
you know perfectly well it was not."

"You have committed the act of a traitor