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A despatch rider arrived from the Transvaal; the situation there urgently demanded the encouragement of Steyn's presence. To leave this impregnable stronghold and venture across the open plains below needed all the boldness of De Wet, all the steadfast courage of Steyn. These leaders had never been known to falter; they did not falter now. Everything was arranged in the utmost secrecy.
He and Steyn speak earnestly together. Burger is more silent, more taciturn than ever. We push on, and reach Machadodorp, where a train is in waiting. The station is crowded with Transvaalers, all eager to shake their gallant Free State brethren by the hand.
Commandant Steenekamp was then nominated to act as Assistant Commander-in-Chief, with the duty of conducting the laager through the Boschveldt. On August the 14th President Steyn left the laager on his way to Machadodorp; and I myself took my departure three days later.
The next morning we rode out to the Sand River to see the Boer positions near the drift, and met President Steyn in his Cape cart coming from them on his way to the bridge. Ever since the occupation of Bloemfontein, the London papers had been speaking of him as "the Late President," as though he were dead.
On October 2nd President Steyn informed Sir Alfred Milner that he had deemed it necessary to call out the Free State burghers that is, to mobilise his forces. Sir A. Milner wrote regretting these preparations, and declaring that he did not yet despair of peace, for he was sure that any reasonable proposal would be favourably considered by her Majesty's Government.
The fact, too, that he left Steyn to become Latin Secretary to a powerful bishop implies that he must have had many opportunities for study and have made good use of them. But from what he says it is clear that the tone of the place was set by the mediocrities. We need not suppose that vice was rampant among them, to shock the young and enthusiastic scholar.
He was fully persuaded in his own mind that Sir Alfred Milner, being still a new arrival in South Africa, had not been able to grasp its complicated problems, and so had not adopted the best means to baffle the intrigues of President Kruger and the diplomacy of his clever colleague, President Steyn.
The next day we went down to the Boer laagers on the Sand river and met President Steyn on the way. He got out of his Cape Cart and gave Cecil a rose and Loosberg his field glasses, which Cecil took from Loosberg in exchange for her own Zeiss glass, and he gave me a drink and an interview. He also gave us a letter to St.
We also learnt that Steyn was ill, that he was hiding on a farm near Heilbron, that he was a prisoner in De Wet's camp, that his mind had given way, that he wouldn't let De Wet surrender, that De Wet wouldn't let the burghers surrender, that the burghers wouldn't let Steyn surrender, ad fin. ad nauseam.
I was exceedingly sorry to find that President Steyn was seriously ill. For the last six weeks he had been in the doctor's hands; and, since his arrival at Pretoria, had been under the care of Dr. Van der Merwe, of Krugersdorp.
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