Part 12 (1/2)
”The president desires to know who you are, and for whom you were acting as spy two nights ago,” he said courteously. ”Who employed you? Was it the British Government?”
”No one employed me,” answered Jack, looking Joubert straight in the face. ”It was purely by accident that I discovered the magazine down by Volksrust, and since the men there were positive that I was a spy and talked of shooting me, I was forced to escape for my life. That is all I know about the matter; and now I will ask you by what right I am removed in this manner from Johannesburg and brought here as a prisoner.
I am a British subject, come here for my health, and if I have done anything wrong I am willing to stand my trial in the courts.”
”Tush, boy!” Joubert replied harshly. ”What do we care about subjects of England here? You have acted as a spy, and that is why you are a prisoner.”
”Ask him on his honour whether he was a spy and whether he is telling the truth,” President Kruger broke in at this moment, using the English tongue in his eagerness to put the question. ”Ask him on his honour,”
he repeated. ”All of his country pride themselves on that, and when they are put upon it they will tell the truth.”
”I am no spy,” Jack said calmly. ”I have told you the truth, and will swear to it on my honour.”
”Will you make use of the secret you have obtained, if I let you go and send you outside the Transvaal?” asked the president, now fully awake, leaning forward and favouring Jack with a piercing gaze.
”I cannot promise not to,” replied Jack, after a moment's pause. ”If that magazine is a menace to England, as seems most probable, it will be my duty to inform the Governor of Cape Colony of it, and I shall do so.”
”Ah, you will!” growled Oom Paul angrily. Then he turned to General Joubert, and the two conversed volubly for a few minutes, the president hammering on the table with his hand in the most emphatic manner, and evidently laying down the law.
”Bah!” he exclaimed at last. ”What does it matter? It would do more harm to us to injure this lad than for our secret to be known. The British are already aware that we are purchasing arms. Let them know it all. It will not harm us; though to act so as to cause the prisoner's friends to make active enquiries for him might precipitate matters. Let him go! Release him! He is a brave lad, which is unusual amongst these hated Rooineks, and he deserves to go free as a reward for his boldness.
See to it, Joubert!”
Jack was overjoyed, for he had quite expected that the rash avowal of his intention to divulge his secret would make matters even more unpleasant. And now he was free. He was on the point of thanking the president and of retiring when his eyes lit upon Piet Maarten's angry scowling face, and he at once remembered the young Boer's threat that he and Hans Schloss together would have to be reckoned with.
”Your honour,” he said, facing Oom Paul again, ”I have a request to make. You have commanded that I shall have my liberty. I ask for protection. That man there, together with a German whom I had the misfortune to wound when escaping from the magazine, have threatened to deal with me should I receive my freedom at your hands. I ask you now to grant me some kind of an escort to the frontier.”
”Have I not ordered that you shall have your freedom?” answered Paul Kruger brusquely. ”That is enough. Should anyone attempt to molest you he shall account for it.”
Satisfied with his answer, Jack murmured his thanks and retired. He was at once placed in charge of two Boers whom he had never seen before, and was driven off into the veldt again. About an hour later an engine and a single carriage steamed up and he was told to get in. Then they were whirled away to Johannesburg just in time to catch a train starting on the long run to Port Elizabeth.
One of the guards remained behind, but the other stayed on with Jack, making himself most pleasant, and chatting with him constantly.
Many hours later he shook hands with him, and wished him good-bye.
”Don't come back to us,” he said shortly, as the train ran into Norval's Pont, the southern border of the Orange Free State. ”You have escaped with your life, but you would not do so a second time. Here is money which the president told me to hand to you. It is just sufficient to pay for your journey and comfort to Port Elizabeth, and here also is your ticket.”
Jack thanked him, pressed his hand, and then watched him depart. A few moments later the train was in motion again. At Naauwpoort, the next stopping point, there is a junction, with a connecting line running westward to De Aar to join the Cape Town line to Kimberley and Mafeking, and here Jack left the carriage and boarded another train. Late the next evening he had reached the diamond city, and had called on Tom Salter, an old friend of Mr Hunter's.
”Hallo, Jack!” exclaimed the latter, who had met him before. ”What brings you here? Your place should be alongside of the Hunters, for they are likely to want every man they can lay hands on soon.”
”Yes, I've heard that,” Jack answered, ”but unfortunately I have got into hot water in Johnny's Burg, and have consequently come here for the good of my health.”
”Ha, ha! That's queer, my lad,” laughed Tom Salter, a typical, red-faced, and robust-looking colonist. ”You've been punching that fellow's head again, I suppose? What's his name? Piet Maartens, or something of that sort, isn't it? Ah, it's you quiet, harmless-looking lads who are always getting into a warm corner!”
”Well, no, it's not quite that,” Jack replied, with a smile. ”Piet Maartens, though, had a hand in it all the same. I'll tell you all about it if you like. Mr Hunter told me to come here, and said you would be able to give me something to do.”
”Of course I will, Jack,” said Tom Salter heartily. ”And you will take up your quarters with me. There's plenty of room in the house, and the wife will be glad to see you. Now tell me the yarn.”
”That was a close shave, old boy,” he said, when he had heard Jack's adventures. ”Phew! You were within an ace of being shot by those fellows in the magazine. Ah, they are rough customers, and we're going to have an ugly trouble with them! That's why we here and our boys up at Mafeking are getting ready. Special-service officers have come to us from England, and though you'd scarcely think it, ammunition and stores are quietly pouring in. Ah! we've one of them here as slim as old Oom Paul himself, and another lad up at Mafeking, by name Baden-Powell, who would even give that old crafty schemer a start, and lick him easily.
Well, we shall see, but if there is to be a row I'm going to be in it.”
”Everything seems to point to war; at least so I have gathered from Mr Hunter,” remarked Jack, ”and I, too, mean to take a share in it.”