Part 40 (1/2)

”But how could you find me guilty?” Mr. Hattingh asked. ”I have never been tried.”

”Be silent,” the officer commanded sternly. ”You have nothing to say.”

Mr. Hattingh says he was only too glad to ”be silent,” and betook himself to the Rest Camp with alacrity.

During the weeks of their imprisonment in the jail those at Harmony were not living in a bed of roses.

Of Willie Botha's loyalty they never had a doubt, but the other men were unknown to them, and they knew that all were aware of the part played by them in the Secret Service. And even if they were not betrayed by one of the prisoners, it was a mystery that they had not been betrayed _with_ them.

Many of their friends, the families of the men in jail, had been sent to Camps or across the border, and no one was more surprised at finding themselves still in Pretoria than Mrs. van Warmelo and her daughter.

They felt the strain, the uncertainty of their position keenly, and throughout those weeks they were obliged to conceal from their good friends, the Consuls and their families, the danger to which they were exposed and the intense anxiety with which they were filled, not only on their own account, but for those brave men in the Pretoria jail.

Towards the end of September, when the prisoners had been removed to the Rest Camp, a baby-girl was born in Willie Botha's house.

The mother had been left undisturbed in her home, a consideration for which she and all who were concerned for her were devoutly grateful, and now she had pa.s.sed through the portals of Gethsemane and the wide gates of Eden, in the bitter-sweet experiences of motherhood.

The news of the birth of a daughter was duly conveyed to Willie Botha in the Rest Camp, with a request to the authorities to allow him to visit his wife and see his child before leaving South Africa's sh.o.r.es for Bermuda.

Permission was granted for a two-hours' visit.

An armed soldier escorted him to his home and sat outside, under the verandah, drinking coffee and enjoying the good things with which he had been provided, while, inside, his prisoner, speechless with emotion, knelt beside the mother's bed, showering kisses on the tiny feet of his infant daughter.

When the first greetings were over Mr. Botha said:

”Wife, what became of that old hymn-book which was standing on the shelf in the dining-room?”

”I don't know,” she answered; ”I suppose it was taken away by Elliot with all the other books and papers.”

”Elliot!” he muttered between his teeth.

”Elliot, betrayer of friends, and Judas-Boer!”

This man had been intimately known to them all, had, in fact, for many months lived with his wife and family, as guest and friend, under the hospitable roof of Mr. and Mrs. Hattingh, at whose hands they received innumerable acts of love and kindness.

Elliot was the man by whom the members of the Secret Committee were arrested that Sunday night.

Verily it can be said of him--

”For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it; neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him. But it was thou, a man my equal, my guide, and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of G.o.d in company.”

The occasion of Willie Botha's visit having been made to serve at the same time as a christening, there were quiet, sacred rejoicings when the minister, who had in the meantime arrived, performed the ceremony.

As soon as the service was over Mr. Botha walked rapidly to the dining-room and glanced over the empty book-shelves. Nothing there!

He stood on tiptoe for a moment, surveying the topmost shelf, and was about to turn away disappointed, when his eye fell on the tattered psalm-book, lying unnoticed in a corner of the shelf.