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He had meant to wait yet another day, and take many things more, but the coming of those verdoemte soldiers of the Engelsch Commandant to fetch away the carboys of carbolic acid and the other medical stores had roused him to prompt action.
Remember that this match-talk goes thus: For the letter A one flare, and hide the light as you saw me do just now. For B, two flares, and hide the light; for C, three, and hide; for D, four, and hide; and so on ... It is slow, of course, and matches will blow out when you do not want them to, and a cycle-lamp or a candle-lantern would be easier to deal with, but for the verdoemte patrols.
And the woman that is dead had jewels I have seen them on her diamonds and rubies in rings and bracelets fit for the vrouw of King Solomon himself. The Englishman did not bury them with her under that verdoemte kopje that he built with his two hands, and they are not in the boxes in the living-waggon." "Did he not?" asked Bough, looking the Boer driver full in the face with a pleasant smile.
"It is unlucky," he added less pleasantly, "that you were such a verdoemte clever knave as to tell the Engelschwoman I had commandeered both beast and vehicle for Republics' use. Because now I will do it, look you! No Boer's son that lives, by the Lord! will I suffer to make Selig Brounckers out a liar."
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."
"You shall for me find out what that Commandant of the rooineks is up to under his Flag of the Red Cross." "He didn't say nothink about no Red Cross, darlin'." "Stilte! They will the Red Cross Flag hoist, I tell you, and it will cover more than a parcel of nuns and schoolgirls. That Commandant is so verdoemte slim! Tell me, do you cartridges well know when you shall see them?
And you can give yourself to any dirty verdoemte schelm of an Engelschman you please, for I will have none of you! To-morrow you shall have a paper showing you how to tell me very many things in match-talk, and earn much money to buy presents for my nice little Boer vrouw. Alamachtig! what is this?"
The arms of Slabberts soared as the tongue of Slabberts wagged in explanation. "This is assault and battery, Meister, upon a peaceful burgher. You shall answer to your officer for it, I tell you slap. Voor den donder! Is not a young man to light his pipe as he talks to a young woman without being called spy by a verdoemte sentry! Tell him, Jannje, that is all I did do!"
I have seen him break a man like a stick between his hands for nothing but cutting up a thieving monkey of a little Kaffir with the sjambok. And he took the verdoemte thing home where he lives, they say, and strapped up its black hide with plaster, and set its arm as if it had been a child of Christians. But every Engelschman is mad. Groot Brittanje breeds a nation of madmen."
Then he went into the bar-room to speak to the Englishman's Boer driver. Leaning easily upon the zinc-covered counter he spoke to the man in the Taal, with which he was perfectly familiar: "Your Baas has gone in, as my wife and I expected." Smoots Beste growled in his throat: "He was no Baas of mine, the verdoemte rooinek! I drove for him for pay, that is all.
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