oshua, when he walked round the wall of the city," suggested Jess.
"Jonah walked down the whale's throat."

"Ah! to be sure, so he did, and blew a trumpet inside. I remember
now; though I am sure I don't know how he did it. The fact is that our
glorious victories have quite confused me. Ah! what a thing it is to be
a patriot! The dear Lord makes strong the arm of the patriot, and takes
care that he hits his man well in the middle."

"You have turned wonderfully patriotic all of a sudden, _Oom_ Coetzee,"
said Jess tartly.

"Yes, missie, yes; I am a patriot to the bone of my back! I hate the
English Government; damn the English Government! Let us have our land
back and our _Volksraad_. Almighty! I saw who was in the right at
Laing's Nek there. Ah, those poor _rooibaatjes!_ I killed four of them
myself; two as they came up, and two as they ran away, and the last one
went head-over-heels like a buck. Poor man! I cried for him afterwards.
I did not like going to fight at all, but Frank Muller sent to me and
said that if I did not go he would have me shot. Ah, he is a devil of a
man, that Frank Muller! So I went, and when I saw how the dear Lord had
put it into the heart of the English general to be a bigger fool even
that day than he is every day, and to try and drive us out of Laing's
Nek with a thousand of his poor _rooibaatjes_, then, I tell you, I saw
where the right lay, and I said, 'Damn the English Government! What is
the English Government doing here?' and after Ingogo I said it again."

"Never mind all that, _Oom_ Coetzee," broke in Jess. "I have heard you
tell a different tale before, and perhaps you will again. How are my
uncle and my sister? Are they at the farm?"

"Almighty! you don't suppose that I have been there to see, do you? But,
yes, I have heard they are there. It is a nice place, that Mooifontein,
and I think that I shall buy it when we have turned all you English
people out of the land. Frank Muller told me that they were there. And
now I must be getting on, or that devil of a man, Frank Muller, will
want to know what I have been about."

"_Oom_ Coetzee," said Jess, "will you do something for me? We are
old friends, you know, and once I persuaded my uncle to lend you five
hundred pounds when all your oxen died of the lungsick."

"Yes, yes, it shall be paid back one day--when we have hunted the damned
Englishmen out of the country." And he began to gather up his reins
preparatory to riding off.