e, his absence had been at once discovered, and, by the
Boers, every effort was being made to retake him. Telegrams giving his
description were sent along both railways, three thousand photographs
of him were distributed, each car of every train was searched, and
in different parts of the Transvaal men who resembled him were being
arrested. It was said he had escaped dressed as a woman; in the uniform
of a Transvaal policeman whom he had bribed; that he had never left
Pretoria, and that in the disguise of a waiter he was concealed in the
house of a British sympathizer. On the strength of this rumor the houses
of all suspected persons were searched.

In the Volksstem it was pointed out as a significant fact that a week
before his escape Churchill had drawn from the library Mill's "Essay on
Liberty."

In England and over all British South Africa the escape created as much
interest as it did in Pretoria. Because the attempt showed pluck, and
because he had outwitted the enemy, Churchill for the time became a sort
of popular hero, and to his countrymen his escape gave as much pleasure
as it was a cause of chagrin to the Boers.

But as days passed and nothing was heard of him, it was feared he
had lost himself in the Machadodorp Mountains, or had succumbed
to starvation, or, in the jungle toward the coast, to fever, and
congratulations gave way to anxiety.

The anxiety was justified, for at this time Churchill was in a very bad
way. During the month in prison he had obtained but little exercise. The
lack of food and of water, the cold by night and the terrific heat by
day, the long stumbling marches in the darkness, the mental effect upon
an extremely nervous, high-strung organization of being hunted, and of
having to hide from his fellow men, had worn him down to a condition
almost of collapse.

Even though it were neutral soil, in so exhausted a state he dared not
venture into the swamps and waste places of the Portuguese territory;
and, sick at heart as well as sick in body, he saw no choice left him
save to give himself up.

But before doing so he carefully prepared a tale which, although most
improbable, he hoped might still conceal his identity and aid him to
escape by train across the border.

One night after days of wandering he found himself on the outskirts of
a little village near the boundary line of the Transvaal and Portuguese
territory. Utterly unable to proceed further, he crawled to the nearest
zinc