Part 30 (1/2)
”I shall never convince you, and you will never convince me.”
”Oh yes, I should, after you had come to your senses! There, we are not brutes, only men fighting for our liberties, and I like you, for you are brave and manly. Why not join our cause? It is just.”
West looked the Boer full in the eyes, thinking the while that the man spoke in all sincerity and belief that his cause was right.
”Well, what do you say?” cried the Boer.
West tightened his lips and shook his head.
The Boer frowned and turned to Ingleborough.
”Well,” he said, ”you join us, and you will not repent. Prove faithful, and you will gain a place of trust among us!”
West listened for his comrade's reply.
”Oh, I can't join without him,” said Ingleborough. ”He's master, and I'm only man!”
”Then he was bearer of the despatch--what that man Anson said was true?”
”Oh yes, that part of his story was true enough.”
”That you were despatch-riders on the way to Mafeking--you two?”
”Quite right.”
”And you two had been diamond-dealers, and brought away a quant.i.ty?”
”Just as many, as we schoolboys used to say, as you could put in your eye with the point of a needle. All a lie! Anson was putting his own case. All we brought away was the despatch.”
”Then where is it?” said the Boer sharply.
”I don't know; I was not the bearer,” said Ingleborough quietly, ”But you know where it is now?”
”I--do--not,” said Ingleborough firmly. ”I have not the slightest idea where it is!”
”Then you have sent it on by someone else?”
”No,” said Ingleborough. ”There, you know that we have failed, and if you set us at liberty, all we can do is to go back to Kimberley and say what has happened.”
”You will not go back to Kimberley,” said the Boer, speaking with his eyes half-closed, ”and if you did it would only be to go into prison, for the Diamond City is closely besieged, and if not already taken it will in a few days be ours. There, go back to your wagon, and spend the time in thinking till I send for you again. The choice is before you--a good position with us, or a long imprisonment before you are turned out of the country.”
He pointed towards their temporary place of confinement, and then turned away, while a couple of the Boers marched them to the wagon and left them in the sentry's charge.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
THE SKY CLEARS.
Once more in the wagon, one ox a pair of despondent prisoners, hot in temper as well as in person with the excitement of what he had so lately gone through, West cast himself down upon the floor ready to groan, while his more experienced, harder comrade sat down cross-legged to think.
”If I only knew where the coat was!” said West, with a groan.