Part 39 (2/2)

”You may safely speak out now, for we know everything. So-and-so has turned King's evidence.” But these brave men saw through the ruse, and steadfastly refused to sell their honour for their lives. With one accord they answered, ”So-and-so may have given you information, but _I_ know nothing.”

They were subjected to severe treatment, half-starved, threatened, told that they were condemned to death, and then severely left alone with the sword hanging over their heads--to no avail. Not a word of information was wrung from them, no murmur of complaint crossed their lips.

This lasted sixteen days, and during that time they suffered intensely, the food being unfit for consumption and their surroundings filthy beyond words. As I have said before, there were among their number men physically unfit for hards.h.i.+ps like these.

Mr. Willem Botha was one of them, and as the days dragged on, the headaches with which he was afflicted became more frequent and increased in violence.

He feared that he would lose his reason and, in losing it, betray all to his jailers, and he was consumed with anxiety for his wife.

After the first shock of his arrest, he was suddenly overwhelmed with the recollection that he had forgotten to destroy the slip of paper on which the message concerning the Boer traitor in the Free State had been conveyed to him through a prisoner in the Rest Camp. He tried to remember what he had done with it, but in vain. Each day found him torn with anxiety, searching his memory for the threads of recollection, broken in the stress of the last stirring events before his arrest. Suddenly one day it flashed across his mind that he had pushed the slip of paper between the tattered leaves of an old hymn-book.

Bitterly he reproached himself with his unpardonable negligence. That slip of paper, containing injunctions to the Committee to convey information of such a serious character to the Boer leaders, would be sufficient proof against him and his fellows. No other evidence would be required to bring them to their death, if it had fallen into the hands of the enemy.

The unfortunate man, in his prison cell, prayed for deliverance, not only for himself, but for the trusty comrades who would be exposed to such deadly peril by this, his one act of indiscretion.

The weary days dragged on.

Suffering, not to be described by words, was the daily portion of this man.

His fellow-prisoners shared the same fate, with one exception.

Mr. Hattingh in his prison cell, who had been taken in his deacon's frock-coat that Sunday night, reaped the rewards of the sagacity he had displayed on the occasion of the visit to his house of the Judas-Boer.

There was a marked difference in the treatment he received at the hands of his jailers. He was not once condemned to death, and he was hardly cross-questioned during the entire term of his imprisonment--better food, kinder treatment being accorded him than to any of his fellows, as he found on comparing notes with them afterwards.

It was quite evident that he was the only man about whose guilt the enemy was in a certain amount of doubt.

His family, too, was privileged, his wife being allowed a few days'

grace to sell her household goods before she was conveyed to a camp with her children, while the families of the other men were instantly removed and their homes taken into possession by the English.

If the enemy had only known it, Mr. Hattingh, who was known for his uprightness and moral integrity, had no intention of perjuring himself in the witness-box, but had fully made up his mind to confess his complicity and to face his death like a man and a patriot.

There is no doubt that this brave man would have been endowed with the required courage to uphold his word when the hour came, but it is equally certain that no word of accusation in evidence against his fellow-conspirators would have been wrung from his lips.

When at the end of the sixteen days no proof of their guilt had been found, their captors, recognising and appreciating their staunch fidelity and unswerving loyalty, removed them from their cells in the dreary jail to the Rest Camp, where they were able to enjoy the privileges of the ordinary prisoners of war, and refres.h.i.+ng intercourse with their brothers from the field.

But before they were admitted to the Rest Camp they were brought one by one into the presence of a British officer, who pompously read their sentence to them.

How the other men pa.s.sed through their interview with him I do not know, but Mr. Hattingh's story, told in his own words, runs thus:

After a few questions had been put, the British officer said to him:

”You have been found guilty of high treason, but Lord Kitchener has been kind enough to commute your sentence to banishment as prisoner of war.”

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