He advanced slowly and with dignity, as became a prophet, and at length reached the side of the cart, where the sight of his illuminated figure and of the dirty blanket over his head nearly made the horses run away.
“What is it?” said John testily, for he was in no mood for delay.
“I thought I’d just get up to tell you,” replied the draped form, “that I am quite sure that I was right, and that the Boers will shoot you. I should not like you to say afterwards that I have not warned you,” and he held up the candle so that the light fell on John’s face, and gazed at it in fond farewell.
“Curse it all,” said John in a fury, “if that was all you had to say you might have kept in bed,” and he brought down his lash on the wheelers and away they went with a bound, putting out the prophet’s candle and nearly knocking the prophet himself backwards into the _sluit_.
The four greys were fresh horses, in good condition and with a light load behind them, so, notwithstanding the bad state of the tracks which they call roads in South Africa, John made good progress.
By eleven o’clock that day he had reached Standerton, a little town upon the Vaal, not far from which, had he but known it, he was destined to meet with a sufficiently striking experience. Here he obtained confirmation of the Bronker’s Spruit disaster, and listened with set face and blazing eyes to the tale of treachery and death which was, as he said, without a parallel in the annals of civilised war. But, after all, what does it matter?—a little square of graves at Bronker’s Spruit, a few more widows and a hundred or so of orphans. England, by her Government, answered the question plainly—it matters very little.
At Standerton John was again warned that it would be impossible for him to make his way through the Boers at Heidelberg, a town about sixty miles from Pretoria, where the Triumvirate, Krüger, Pretorious, and Joubert, had proclaimed the Republic. But he answered as before, that he must go on till he was stopped, and inspanning his horses set forward again, a little comforted by the news that the Bishop of Pretoria, who was hurrying up to rejoin his family, had passed through a few hours before, also intent upon running the blockade, and that if he drove fast he might overtake him.