force, meant to give in
without further fighting;[*] but Bessie shook her head.

[*] This is said on good authority to have been their
intention had not Mr. Gladstone surprised them by his sudden
surrender.--Author.

One day--it was the same on which John and Jess left Pretoria--a Kafir
brought the news that the armistice was at an end, that the English were
advancing up to the Nek in thousands, and were going to force it on the
morrow and relieve the garrisons--a piece of intelligence that brought
some of the old light back to Bessie's eyes. As for her uncle, he was
jubilant.

"The tide is going to turn, at last, my love," he said, "and we shall
have our innings. Well, it is time we should, after all the disgrace,
loss and agony of mind we have gone through. Upon my word, for the last
two months I have been ashamed to call myself an Englishman. However,
there is an end of it now. I knew that they would never give in and
desert us," and the old man straightened his crooked back and
slapped his chest, looking as proud and gallant as though he were
five-and-twenty instead of seventy years of age.

The rest of that day passed without any further news, and so did the
following two days, but on the third, which was March 23, the storm
broke.

About eleven o'clock in the forenoon Bessie was employed upon her
household duties as usual, or rather she had just finished them. Her
uncle had returned from his usual after-breakfast round upon the farm,
and was standing in the sitting-room, his broad felt hat in one hand and
a red pocket-handkerchief in the other, with which he was polishing his
bald head, while he chattered to Bessie through the open door.

"No news of the advance, Bessie dear?"

"No, uncle," she replied with a sigh, her blue eyes filling with tears,
for she was thinking of one of whom there was also no news.

"Well, never mind. These things take a little time, especially with
our soldiers, who move so slowly. I dare say that there was some delay
waiting for guns or ammunition or something. I expect that we shall hear
by to-night----"

"De Booren, Baas, de Booren!" (the Boers, master, the Boers) he shouted.
"The Boers are coming with a waggon, twenty of them or more, with Frank
Muller at their head on his black horse, and Hans Coetzee, and the
one-eyed Basutu wizard with him. I was hiding behind a tree at the end
of the avenue, and I saw them riding over the rise. They are going to
take t