Aletta Part 30

Colvin was not disposed to deny this in the faces of those present, intending to use that very argument in favour of being allowed to proceed on his way. But he was deeply concerned on behalf of Frank.

The fool was simply committing suicide. Yet--how prevent him? He had seen Frank very uproarious more than once, in his cups, but here that motive power was lacking. The silly chap seemed to have gone half off his head with racial antagonism. But his own endeavours to persuade the Boer authorities to that effect drew forth a renewed outburst from the man he was striving to befriend. The Dutch Commandant lost patience.

"Be still, Englishman," he said, very sharply and sternly. "I am going to speak, and if you open your mouth again until I have finished, you will have that thrust into it which will quiet you. Well, then, you were treated no worse than others in your position until you brought rough treatment upon yourself. You have been as violent; as a drunken b.a.s.t.a.r.d Hottentot, without his excuse. You have a.s.saulted and struck our burghers, and you have only opened your mouth to shout out insults to His Honour the President and horrid blasphemies to Almighty G.o.d.

There can be no place for such a man as you among our G.o.d-fearing burghers, and we are not going to release you while so many of our brave comrades are rotting on your English prison ships. It may be that you have not many hours left in this world, and I advise you to think over and ask pardon of Heaven for all your blasphemous words." Then to the guards, "Take him back whence he came while we deliberate."

"That for your cant, you cursed, whining old snuffle-nose," yelled Frank, spitting in the direction of the Commandant. "You can shoot me if you like, but you'll all hang--every man jack of you--infernal rebels and traitors. Hurrah! G.o.d save the Queen!" And thus vociferating, he was hustled away.

"Do not hold him responsible for what he says or does, Mynheer Commandant," said Colvin earnestly. "I think his misfortunes have turned his brain. He was always excitable. We cannot hold a man responsible when he is off his head, can we?"

To this plea Commandant Schoeman made no reply. He turned a cold, fishy eye upon the pleader, then remarked to the others:

"_Toen, Heeren_. We had better discuss, under the guidance of Heaven, what our best course will be with regard to this violent and blasphemous prisoner. For yourself, Mynheer"--to Colvin--"you would doubtless prefer the rest and quiet of your tent--or to see if some of your friends are in our camp."

Colvin promptly acted upon this more than hint. But with all his anxiety to reach Ratels Hoek, a kind of instinct on Frank Wenlock's account reconciled him to a further sojourn in Schoeman's camp. He suspected that Frank stood in grave peril of his life; and if so he must exert all and whatever influence he himself possessed on behalf of his friend and former comrade.

His instinct proved an accurate one, and his worst fears were justified.

Not until near evening, however, did he learn that Frank Wenlock had been sentenced to be shot, and would meet his death at daybreak.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE NET DRAWS IN.

It was Morkel who brought the news. Their deliberations on Frank's fate had lasted for some hours, being interspersed with a sort of impromptu prayer-meeting or two--and in the result he had been brought before the Commandant again, and being asked if he had any thing to say in excuse for having repeatedly insulted the President, blasphemed Almighty G.o.d, and taken up arms against the Republic, part of whose territory this had now been proclaimed by annexation, replied simply by a savage renewal of all the abuse he had already been foolish enough to heap upon those in whose power he was. So he was condemned to be shot at daybreak on the following morning.

Not all had been in favour of that extreme measure, said Morkel. Swaart Jan Grobbelaar for one, and old Sarel Van der Vyver for another, had spoken on the side of mercy; possibly with an uneasy eye to eventualities. But Commandant Schoeman, who was a Free State Boer, and whose own position as a mere belligerent was secure in any event, had overruled them, and by that time to-morrow poor Frank Wenlock would no longer exist. "What can be done, Morkel?" said Colvin, very much moved.

"Do you think they really intend to do it?"

"Dead certain," was the gloomy reply. "You know the poor devil simply brought it upon himself. You saw how he behaved this morning, Kershaw.

Why he was simply committing suicide."

"Would it be any use if I were to try and talk over Schoeman? Might persuade him to let the chap off with a bit of a fright. I am in with some of the big bugs up at Pretoria, you know."

"Not an atom of use," said Morkel decidedly. "You are in fairly bad odour yourself, you see, Kershaw."

"It's ghastly. I can't believe they really intend to shoot the poor chap. But, by-the-by, Morkel, how is it you are up here among them? I thought you were so rigidly--er--Imperialist?"

Morkel looked embarra.s.sed.

"So I am--er--was, I mean," he answered, speaking low. "But it's all Jelf's fault. He took on a fad to collect the state of feeling among the farmers, and was always wanting me to go round and find it out. I went once too often; for when Olivier and Schoeman crossed from the Free State, and the whole of the Wildschutsberg and the Rooi-Ruggensberg rose as one man, why they simply commandeered me."

"But as a Government servant--"

"_Ja_--a fat lot they cared about the Government servant part of it. A man of my name could not be on the English side, they said. So they just gave me my choice--to join them or be shot as a spy. I was a spy, of course, they swore. They knew I had been sent out by the Civil Commissioner to find out things. So there it was."

"But it'll come rather awkward for you when all this is over, Morkel?"

"I'll have to chance that. It, at any rate, is a chance, but the other was a dead cert. _Maagtig_! Kershaw, when you see half a dozen fellows with rifles step out, all ready to let daylight through you in ten minutes' time, why you prefer the chances of the remote future to the certainty of the immediate present. If you don't think so--why, you just find yourself in my shoes, and see."

This was undeniable--and then the _ci-devant_ Civil Commissioner's clerk went on to explain that he was by no means certain that things were going to turn out so favourably for the English as had at first seemed probable. The Republics might get the better of it practically, in which event he would likely drop in for something worth having--anyway, he couldn't help himself. Besides, it would have happened in any case, for the burghers had jumped Schalkburg and commandeered every man there who bore a Dutch name, as well as all the stores. But with regard to the De la Rey household Morkel could give no reliable information. He had heard that Stepha.n.u.s and his wife were away in the Free State, but even that he did not know for certain, nor whether the girls were at home or not.

"But how did Frank manage to get captured, Morkel? Was he fighting?"

"No. They went to his place, and started in to commandeer all his stuff. You know what a violent beggar he is when his monkey is up--and he started punching heads by the half-dozen. What could he do against a crowd? The wonder to me is they didn't shoot him then and there. But they broke up everything in the house, and turned the old lady out of doors and locked her own doors on her. Good job that pretty sister of his was away from home, for they were the lowest down type of Boer--of the Mani Delport sample."

Both men puffed gloomily at their pipes for some minutes in silence.

Then Colvin said:

"Look here, Morkel. I am going to have another try at old Schoeman.

You must persuade him to see me. So cut along, old chap, and do so. By the way, if the worst comes to the worst, he must let me see Frank."

"I'll try, Kershaw," said Morkel. "I'll try my darnedest, but I'm not over sanguine."

Nor was Colvin, and his despondency was fully justified when, after nearly an hour, Morkel returned. Commandant Schoeman flatly refused to see him that night, nor would he authorise him to hold an interview with the prisoner, or any communication whatever, on peril of the utmost penalty.

"The infernal old brute!" was the only comment Colvin could make.

"Yes, he is," rejoined Morkel gloomily. "And now I must clear out--for he has a lot of 'secretarial' work for me to-night, he says. Well, we have done all we could, and if we can't help the poor chap we can't.

It's the fortune of war. Good-night."

Left to himself Colvin sat for a while thinking hard, and as he did so his despondency deepened. Poor Frank! Was there no way out of it? His memory went back over the period of their acquaintance--over the old days when they had campaigned together as comrades--over the times they had spent together since, under more peaceful auspices--by what a mere chance it had come about that they were not much more nearly related.

With all his weaknesses, Frank was far too good a fellow to come to such pitiable grief as this. What could be done? And still the inexorable answer--Nothing.

Rising in the sheer restlessness of desperation, he went outside the tent. It was nearly dark now, and the cooking fires of the camp were ablaze in all directions, and the deep-toned voices of the burghers buzzed forth on all sides. As he stepped outside, a figure looming out of the dusk barred his way.

"Stand! Go no further."

"What is the meaning of this? You hardly seem to know me," said Colvin.

"I know you, Mynheer Kershaw," was the reply. "But the Commandant's orders are that you do not wander about the camp to-night."

"The Commandant's orders?"

"_Ja_, the Commandant's orders," repeated the Boer. "Go in again, if you please."

There was nothing for it but compliance. As he re-entered the tent, Colvin realised that he was indeed a prisoner, and guarded by an armed sentry. What did it mean? Why, simply that for any power he might have to help Frank Wenlock that night--by fair means or foul--he might as well have been in Patagonia or Pekin. More, a very uneasy feeling had come over him that he might ere long stand sorely in need of aid himself.

These precautions seemed to point that way too. Here he was as much a prisoner as the man to whom death would come with the morning light. It struck him in a pa.s.sing way as singular that the men who shared this tent with him were not here to-night, and he was alone. Hour after hour wore on, and still he racked his brains. Once before he had saved Frank Wenlock's life in the heat and excitement of warfare. He could not save it now. That wily old fox Schoeman had seen to that.

Colvin was very tired. The strain of the previous day had told upon him--the strain of those long night hours too. He could not have told approximately at what hour his eyes had closed, and a whirling round of confused dreams were chasing each other through his slumbering brain.

Now he was back again in peace and quietness at Piet Plessis' with Aletta, radiant and happy. Now he was at Ratels Hoek, but Aletta was not there. A cold blank void seemed to take her place, and then into it floated the form of May Wenlock, her face turned from him in horror and loathing, as though requiring her brother's blood at his hands. Then he awoke with a cold start, wondering confusedly whether all that had happened the day before were but a dream--awoke to the light of another day, with the beams of a newly risen sun pouring into the tent--awoke to behold three armed burghers standing over him. Even then he noticed that the expression of their faces was grim and ominous, and that they replied to his morning salutation as curtly as possible.

"So! You are awake at last," said one. "We were about to awaken you.

You must come before the Commandant at once."

"Before the Commandant?" echoed Colvin, still hardly awake. "By the way--the prisoner? What about the prisoner? The Commandant has pardoned him, has he?"

The men exchanged a very strange look with each other at the words.