policemen--'zarps' as
they were called--who looked like broken-down constabulary. Someone
opened--unlocked, that is, the point--the door of the railway carriage
and told us to come out; and out we came--a very ragged and tattered
group of officers--and waited under the sun blaze and the gloating of
many eyes. About a dozen cameras were clicking busily, establishing an
imperishable record of our shame. Then they loosed the men and bade them
form in rank. The soldiers came out of the dark vans, in which they had
been confined, with some eagerness, and began at once to chirp and joke,
which seemed to me most ill-timed good humour. We waited altogether for
about twenty minutes. Now for the first time since my capture I hated
the enemy. The simple, valiant burghers at the front, fighting bravely
as they had been told 'for their farms,' claimed respect, if not
sympathy. But here in Pretoria all was petty and contemptible. Slimy,
sleek officials of all nationalities--the red-faced, snub-nosed
Hollander, the oily Portuguese half-caste--thrust or wormed their way
through the crowd to look. I seemed to smell corruption in the air. Here
were the creatures who had fattened on the spoils. There in the field
were the heroes who won them. Tammany Hall was defended by the
Ironsides.

From these reflections I was recalled by a hand on my shoulder. A
lanky, unshaven police sergeant grasped my arm. 'You are not an
officer,' he said; 'you go this way with the common soldiers,' and he
led me across the open space to where the men were formed in a column of
fours. The crowd grinned: the cameras clicked again. I fell in with the
soldiers and seized the opportunity to tell them not to laugh or smile,
but to appear serious men who cared for the cause they fought for; and
when I saw how readily they took the hint, and what influence I
possessed with them, it seemed to me that perhaps with two thousand
prisoners something some day might be done. But presently a superior
official--superior in rank alone, for in other respects he looked a
miserable creature--came up and led me back to the officers. At last,
when the crowd had thoroughly satisfied their patriotic curiosity, we
were marched off; the soldiers to the enclosed camp on the racecourse,
the officers to the States Model Schools prison.

The distance was short, so far as we were concerned, and surrounded by
an escort of three armed policemen to each officer, we swiftly traversed
two sandy