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Next morning, close to Sikitola's kraal, I bade the farmers good-bye, after telling them that there would be a store in my wagon for three weeks at Umvelos' if they wanted supplies. We then struck more to the north towards our destination. As soon as they had gone I had out my map and searched it for the name old Coetzee had mentioned.
As to the second, Hans Coetzee, the assaulted burgher, will now give evidence. Hans Coetzee, do you swear, in the name of God and the Republic, to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" "Almighty, yes," answered Hans from the cart on which he had enthroned himself, "so help me the dear Lord." "Proceed, then."
"Ah! it is that devil of a man, Frank Muller!" ejaculated Coetzee. "Now I wonder what he wants? I always feel cold down the back when he comes near me." By this time the plunging black horse was being reined up alongside of his pony so sharply that it reared till its great hoofs were pawing the air within a few inches of Hans' head. "Almighty!" said the old man, tugging his pony round.
In an instant the room was filled with smoke. Hans Coetzee clapped his hand to his head, uttering yells of pain and terror, and in the confusion that ensued three or four men, headed by the Kafir Hendrik, rushed into the room and sprang upon Silas Croft, who had retreated to the wall and was standing with his back against it, his rifle, which he had clubbed in both his hands, raised above his head.
However, old Coetzee came forward to greet him heartily enough, and called to his daughters two fine girls, very smartly dressed for Dutch women to give the Captain a cup of coffee. Then John made the rounds after the Boer fashion, and beginning with the old lady in the chair, received a lymphatic shake of the hand from every single soul in the room.
"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!
If he is going too far, God kills him." The butterfly had settled on a coffin! About half-past ten on the morning following her interview with Hans Coetzee, Jess was at "The Palatial" as usual, and John was just finishing packing the cart with such few goods as they possessed.
After this there was a pause, and then Bessie saw her old uncle led forward by two armed Boers, who halted in the middle of the space, about three paces from the saw-bench, and stood one on either side of their prisoner. At the same time Hans Coetzee climbed into the Scotch cart, and Muller drew a note-book and a pencil from his pocket. "Silence!" he said.
Dropping his enormous paw on to his shoulder, Coetzee broke into a burst of somewhat forced merriment, the cause of which, though John did not guess it at the moment, was that he had just perceived Frank Muller, who was in Wakkerstroom with a waggon-load of corn to grind at the mill, standing within five yards, and apparently intensely interested in flipping at the flies with a cowrie made of the tail of a vilderbeeste, but in reality listening to Coetzee's talk with all his ears.
"The Captain is the rooibaatje?" said the old lady "Aunt" Coetzee interrogatively, and yet with the certainty of one who states a fact. John signified that he was. "What does the Captain come to the 'land' for? Is it to spy?" The whole audience listened attentively to their hostess's question, then turned their heads to listen for the answer. "No. I have come to farm with Silas Croft."
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