Part 23 (1/2)

”Why?” he demanded.

”Oh, because it sounds as if I trouble you every day.”

”Well,” he answered, smiling slightly, ”what can I do for you?”

”That's better, thank you,” exclaimed Hansie cheerfully, and straightway plunged into business.

With her mind dwelling on explosives and Secret Service men, she reminded him of a promise he had given her soon after her return from the Irene Camp, that she should visit all the Camps in the Transvaal and write reports for him, to be sent to London if necessary, for publication in the Blue books.

”I have come to arrange with you about my tour,” she said.

”Yes,” he answered. ”I have thought about it and will give you the necessary permits and every facility. You will travel at Government expense, and I will do all I can to make your way easy, on one condition. You must promise to give me a full and true report of things exactly as you find them.”

Hansie was deeply touched by his confidence in her truth, which she knew was not misplaced, and gladly gave the promise he asked from her.

”What you are undertaking,” he continued, ”will not only be difficult, but dangerous. The accommodation in the Camps will probably be very bad, and what would you think of a charge of dynamite under your train?”

Hansie glanced down at the parcel on her lap and said something about thinking she would risk it.

The conversation was taking an unexpected turn, and she longed to get away, but the Governor still had much to say to her.

”You can safely visit all the Camps except those in the north, in the Zoutpansberg and Waterberg districts, and the one in Potchefstroom.”

(”Boers ahead!” was Hansie's mental comment.) ”And I don't think you ought to go alone. Have you thought of any one who could accompany you?”

”Yes,” Hansie replied. ”A friend of mine, Mrs. Stiemens, who nursed with me at Irene, would like to go with me. She is the right woman for such an undertaking, strong and healthy and very cheerful.”

This suggestion meeting with the Governor's approval, it was arranged that they should visit the camp at Middelburg first, and while they were preparing for the tour he would notify their visit to the various commandants and arrange about the permits.

Permission to hold a concert was instantly granted, and she was on the point of leaving, when he asked her whether she had heard of President Steyn's narrow escape.

Yes, she had heard something, but would like to know more about it.

With evident enjoyment he proceeded to relate how the President had slept in Reitz, a small, deserted village in the Free State, with twenty-seven men, how they had stabled their horses and made themselves generally comfortable for the night, how they were surrounded and surprised by the English, who took all their horses before the alarm could be given, how the President escaped on a small pony, which was standing unnoticed in the back yard, and how all the other men were captured, General Cronje (the second), General Wessels, General Fraser, and many other well-known and prominent men. The President must have fled in the open in nothing but a s.h.i.+rt, because all his clothes and even his boots were left behind. In his pockets were many valuable letters and doc.u.ments.

Altogether this event must have given the English great joy, but I think they forgot it in their chagrin at the President's escape, for when Hansie openly rejoiced and blessed the ”small unnoticed pony,”

expressing her great admiration for the brave President, the Governor suddenly turned crusty again and said he could not understand how any one could admire a man who had been the ruin of his country.

”Poor old General!” Hansie mused as she cycled slowly up to Mrs.

Joubert's house, where the spies were waiting for her. ”I have never known him so quarrelsome and unkind. I wonder what it could have been!

The German Consul's visit or the President's escape? What a mercy that he knew nothing of----” She cycled faster, suddenly remembering that it was late and there was still much to do before the two men could begin their perilous journey that night.

After she had handed the parcel over to them, with verbal instructions for its use, she bade them good-bye and went home to lunch.

That evening Mrs. van Warmelo took important doc.u.ments, of which we speak later, and European newspaper cuttings to the Captain, with some money for her tattered son, and a letter for him in a disguised hand.

No names were mentioned, and in the event of the spies falling into the hands of the enemy, nothing found on them could have incriminated any one.