Part 22 (1/2)
”General Botha!” Mrs. van Warmelo exclaimed. ”But he is not in the north. He is on the High Veld, somewhere south-east of Transvaal, and much easier to communicate with than if he had been in Zoutpansberg.”
”How could one get a message through to him?” Miss F. asked, and her hostess decided to beat about the bush no longer.
”Do you not think it would be better to trust me and tell me what you wish to do? I would be better able to answer and help you.”
Miss F. then turned to her brother and said:
”Mrs. van Warmelo is quite right. Tell her everything.” Upon which the young man explained that he had been sent out on a secret mission connected with a consignment of dynamite which lay buried on the eastern frontier. News had been received in Europe that there was a dearth of explosives and, consequently, a temporary cessation of adventures on the railway lines, and it was for the purpose of communicating the fact that this consignment had arrived that he had travelled to Pretoria via the East Coast and over Durban. How to get into touch with some reliable person in Pretoria who was in direct communication with the Boer forces had been his greatest problem, and he was grateful indeed for Mrs. van Warmelo's guarded promise of a.s.sistance.
”I cannot tell you anything now,” she said, ”but if you will leave the matter in my hands I promise that you will hear from me to-morrow morning.”
Mr. F. then told her that he had brought with him a small quant.i.ty of the dynamite, made up into two separate parcels, non-explosive apart, but dangerous when mixed together in a certain way. He had been deputed to instruct the Boers how to mix these ingredients.
He had with him, too, a large prospecting hammer, the long handle of which was bound with leather and closely studded with nails. But the handle was _hollow_ and contained a number of detonators, to be sent out to the Boers for blowing up trains and for damaging the railway lines and bridges. One other article of interest he had brought with him, a huge Parisian hat for his sister, and he told Mrs. van Warmelo how the polite inspector of goods on the frontier had held the lovely headpiece up, admiring the pink roses nestling in black lace and chiffon, and little dreaming that he was handling many yards of dynamite fuse.
”A lovely hat!” he exclaimed when he put it back into the box, without having noticed the _weight_, which alone would have betrayed it to any one familiar with ladies' headgear.
Early next morning Mrs. van Warmelo sallied forth to the house of her confederate, Mr. Willem Botha, at the other end of the town. He listened to her story attentively and said, ”There are spies in town at this very moment, and they are leaving for the General's commando to-night.”
This was good news indeed, and Mrs. van Warmelo immediately made an appointment with Mr. Botha to meet Mr. F. at Harmony that afternoon.
On her way home she called at Miss F.'s house, informing her of the appointment.
That afternoon at Harmony a map was closely studied by the two men and the exact spot pointed out where the dynamite lay buried, while Mrs.
van Warmelo packed the detonators one by one in cotton wool in a small box, which was conveyed to Mr. Hattingh's house, where the spies were being harboured. In the meantime the entire crown and brim of the lovely Parisian hat had been unpicked, and that night the dynamite fuse, wound closely round the body of a spy, went out to the commandos, with the small box of detonators.
Soon after this Mr. F. returned to Europe as he had come, via Natal and Delagoa Bay, well satisfied that his mission should have been accomplished with so much ease.
What became of the sample of dynamite my reader will see in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XVII
THE FIRST INTERVIEW WITH SPIES, INTRODUCING TWO HEROES
Among other things, Mr. Willem Botha warned his friends at Harmony against having a single incriminating doc.u.ment in the house.
”Detection means death for all concerned,” he said one day, ”but without written evidence the worst the enemy can do is to send you out of the country or to a Concentration Camp. Destroy every paper of a dangerous nature you may have, as I have done, and then you need never feel anxious.”
This wise counsel was all very well, but Hansie had a mania for ”collecting,” and she could not make up her mind to destroy what might become a valuable relic of the war.
She therefore had her diaries and white envelopes removed to some safe hiding-place and began a new book for future use.
In this book, in everyday pen and ink, she entered the ordinary events of the day, but in another she wrote in lemon-juice her adventures with the spies and all information of an incriminating character. Both books lay open on her writing-table--the ”White Diary,” as she called it, with its clean and spotless pages, with only here and there an almost invisible mark to show how far she had got, and the misleading record in pen and ink to throw the English off their guard in the event of an unexpected search of the house.
The white diary gave a sense of security and satisfaction at the thought of the secrets it contained for future reference, and it was only after eight years that portions of the writing became visible to the naked eye.
A few hours' exposure to the sun's rays, and the application of a hot iron here and there, made it sufficiently legible to be rewritten word for word, and it is to the existence of this diary that we owe our accurate information of what otherwise would have been lost for ever.
I may add here that it was only the re-reading of the White Diary after so many years, and the surprising amount of half-forgotten information Hansie found in it, that suggested the idea to her mind of publis.h.i.+ng its contents in the form of a story.