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Well, a Boer prisoner, taunted perhaps by a guard, loses his temper and drops a hint, or a Boer farmer, exultant over the latest news of his countrymen's success, lifts the veil a little, and a jealously-guarded secret drops out; or, again, a Boer's wife or daughter, flinging a taunt at a cursed "Rooinek," allows her temper to run away with her discretion.
He went on: "Now you shall know what to look for, and when the verdoemte explosives come, you will know them by the boxes and the letters 'A.O.S. and you will tell me and the guns of our Staats Artillery will not shoot that way, for the sake of the little woman who is going to be a true Boer's vrouw by-and-by."
The "Colonel" answered: "I shall be pleased to see you," and asked them if they had any money or valuables they wished taken care of. But the Boers, true to the saying, "Touch a Boer's heart rather than his purse," answered in chorus: "Thank you, but we have put all that carefully away where no Boer will find it."
They went on side by side, and halted for the night forty miles from Bulteel's farm. They slept in a Boer's out-house, and the vrow was civil, and lent Staines a jackal's skin. In the morning he bought it for a diamond, a carbuncle, and a score of garnets; for a horrible thought had occurred to him, if they stopped at any place where miners were, somebody might buy the great diamond over his head.
"Oh, that if it hadn't been for that bullet and brass cartridge-case, backed up by the thick leather belt, that Boer's bullet would have bored now, now, you were going to laugh," he cried. "That I wasn't," I said wonderingly. "What is there to laugh at?" "Oh, you thought I was making a pun: bored a hole right through me." "Rubbish!" I said.
The rumour of coming war suggested that the first would be our better course, while the Boer's story as to the investigation of Rodd's death pointed the other way. Really I did not know which to do, and as usual Anscombe and Heda seemed inclined to leave the decision to me.
It was one of the Boer's absolute necessities to have a furlough every two or three months, and unless it was given to him by the officers he was more than likely to take it without the prescribed permission.
The Boer's hand was better adapted to the stem of a pipe than to the stock of an army rifle, and he would rather have been engaged in the former peaceful pursuit had he not believed that it was a holy war in which he was engaged. That he was not eager for fighting was displayed in a hundred different ways.
All this while John Niel, being English to his backbone, and cherishing the reputation of his profession almost as dearly as his own honour, was boiling with inward wrath, which was all the fiercer because he knew there was some truth in the Boer's insults. He had the sense, however, to keep his temper outwardly, at any rate. "I was not in the Zulu war, Mr.
It is, of course, unnecessary to say that while a Scotsman makes no objection to exceptional hospitality, his views of the Boer do not differ materially from those of any other person of whatever nationality. He drinks the Boer's coffee, and shakes hands with him and all his family, but there may be, and usually is, a great deal of deception mixed up with such extreme good-feeling.
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