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Updated: June 1, 2025
No solid Dutchman welcomed the idea of soaring skywards in a multitude of infinitesimal fragments, in company with other Free Staters or sons of the Transvaal Republic similarly reduced. No more boasts on the part of Brounckers, General in command of those massed, menacing, united laagers on the Border, seven miles from Gueldersdorp as the crow flew.
The rapacious mouth, with the thick scarlet lips, belonged to the eyes. He had put on his hat again, but he swept it off in a flourishing bow, as Mevrouw Brounckers, in high-kilted wincey, a man's hat of coarse straw perched on her weather-beaten, sandy-grey head, came stumping down the waggon-ladder, calling for her potatoes.
"The first was brought in by a native boy who said he belonged to the kraals at Tweipans," says the Chief. "Boiled small and stuffed into a quill stuck through his ear in the usual way. He trumped up a glib story about his cow having been killed and his new wife beaten by Brounckers' men, and his desire to be revenged, and oblige the English lady who'd been kind to him " "Umph!
But Bough, primed with knowledge as to which are dummy rifle-pits and which are real, aided by acquaintance with the ground, and covered by that wuthering night of storm, has already pierced the lines. Subsequently that excellent Afrikander, Mr. Van Busch, rejoins Brounckers' bright boy at Tweipans, with information that decides the date of Schenk Eybel's Feint from the East.
"SIR, In reply to your communication I am instructed by General Brounckers to inform you that our prisoner, the Englishwoman who came here in the character of a German drummer's refugee-widow to act as your spy, will be exchanged for a free Boer of the Transvaal Republic, by name, Myjnheer W. Slabberts, who is at present confined under the Yellow Flag in Gueldersdorp gaol.
Major Bingo shook his head. "He hasn't been arrested, but his name is known. You remember the runner who came in from Diamond Town with a letter for a man called Casey? Not long after after my wife was exchanged for a spy of Brounckers'?" "I did not see the man myself," returned Saxham, "but I perfectly recollect his getting through." Major Bingo said: "I thought you would.
I have the honour to enclose herewith a sketch-plan of the village and the disposition of General Brounckers' laager. Trusting you may find it useful, "I have the honour to be, "On Secret Service, "Yours most obediently, "H. WRYNCHE." The sarcastic P. Blinders had appended an italicised comment: "His Honour considers the above sketch-plan remarkably faithful.
"There has been a lot of cattle-shooting. Lobbing shrapnel at grazing cows was always quite a favourite game with Brounckers. But his gunners hit oftener than they used to. And the Government forage won't hold out for ever." He patted the brown Waler, who pricked his sagacious ears and threw up his handsome bluntish head in acknowledgment of his master's caress.
It would be well, thought the dispirited jackal ruefully, to remove the unfavourable impression made, by a valuable service rendered to the United Republics. It would be a good thing to stand well with Myjnheer Schenk Eybel, who would, when Brounckers went south, be left in sole command. It would be as well, also, to get a look at that girl that was living with the nuns at Gueldersdorp.
And then, lest Brounckers' pickets should mistake a friend in the darkness, he waited for light in a little thorny kloof beyond their advanced outposts; and the dawn came, with an awful gush of crimson dyeing all the eastern sky, so that the pools about his feet even the drops of wet upon the stones and bushes caught the ruddy reflection, and all the world seemed dripping with new-shed blood.
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