Aletta Part 31

"It is about the prisoner that the Commandant needs you, Mynheer," said the spokesman. And Colvin's heart sank. He was wanted to receive the doomed man's last wishes, he supposed, being the latter's fellow-countryman. Poor Frank--poor Frank!

"I am ready," he said, springing up. "But--tell me. Are they really going to shoot him after all? Surely--surely not!"

The men looked more strangely than ever.

"You ought to know best whether that can now be done or not, Mynheer,"

was the enigmatical reply. "Come!"

Colvin went forth with his guards--one of whom walked on each side of him, and the third behind. This was being under arrest with a vengeance, he thought. As they pa.s.sed through the camp he noticed that the burghers were gathered in groups, conversing in very subdued tones, which at sight of him would become suddenly hushed. There was something solemn and cold-blooded about these preliminaries to the execution he was about to witness that got upon his nerves. As we have pointed out, he had witnessed many a ghastly and horrifying sight during the last few weeks. But this, he felt, was going to be more trying than any.

Commandant Schoeman was seated in his tent, surrounded by his handful of subordinate officers, exactly the same as on the day before. To-day, however, in addition, a few burghers were grouped outside the tent, the b.u.t.ts of their rifles grounded, as they watched the proceedings. But where was the prisoner? Where was Frank Wenlock?

A dire sinking gripped Colvin's mind. Had they done it already? Surely the volley would have awakened him, or had he slept too soundly?

Involuntarily he gazed from side to side.

"Stand there," said his guard, halting him in front of the Commandant's table.

The latter looked up at Colvin's greeting, barely returning it; then he said:

"What have you to say?" Colvin looked fairly puzzled.

"To say?" he echoed. "I do not understand, Mynheer Commandant."

"The prisoner Wenlock has escaped."

Colvin started, and his whole face lit up with satisfaction.

"Escaped, has he? Well then, Mynheer, all I can say is, I think you are well rid of him. Frank is a good fellow ordinarily, but he can make himself most infernally objectionable at times--as yesterday, for instance."

He thought it politic to make no allusion to the death sentence. But at heart he was overjoyed.

"_You_ it was who helped him to escape," said Schoeman, and the tone, and the look of fell menace on his face, suddenly revealed to Colvin that he was standing on the brink of a yawning abyss. It behoved him to keep his head.

"Look now, Mynheer," he said, "I would ask how I could have helped him to escape when I never left my tent the whole night."

"That we shall see," rejoined Schoeman.

"But how could I have left it, when I was kept in it by an armed guard placed there by your own orders?" retorted Colvin.

"I know nothing of such a guard, and I gave no such orders. It is now time for prayers, also for breakfast. There are those here who are ready to prove that you helped the prisoner to escape. In an hour's time I shall require you here again. I warn you, Mynheer, that unless you can disprove the statements of these, things will be very serious for you. Retire now to your tent."

Escorted, as before, Colvin went; and as he went he reflected. The extreme gravity of his position became plain in all its peril. It occurred to him that somebody or other desired to be rid of him. Yet, why? He had no enemies in the camp that he knew of. True, he had somewhat wounded the Commandant's self-esteem at first, but surely Schoeman's vindictiveness would not be carried to such a length. Well, there was no telling. Either Frank Wenlock had been allowed to escape, in order that the charge of aiding and abetting might be fastened upon himself, or he had been quietly made away with--always with the same object. And looking at it in this light, Colvin realised the trap he was in, and that his own life was in very considerable danger.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

TO TAKE HIS PLACE.

It was a curious court-martial this before which he was now convened, thought Colvin, the ridiculous side of things striking him, as an hour later he stood once more before the Commandant's tent, having washed and got some breakfast in the interim. This old Dutch farmer, clad in greasy moleskins, and crowned with a weather-worn, once white chimney-pot hat, was his judge, with absolute power of life and death, and looked moreover as solemn as though he thoroughly realised it.

Those others too, squatting on the ground, smoking pipes, and very frequently spitting: on their good word depended to a very great extent his own life.

"Do you confess to having a.s.sisted the prisoner to escape?" asked the Commandant. "It will save trouble and lighten the guilt upon your soul if you do."

"Certainly I do not, Mynheer," returned Colvin. "How can I have a.s.sisted any prisoner to escape when I was a prisoner myself?"

"_Maagtig_! Said I not that all Englishmen were liars?" grunted the old burgher, for the benefit of those within the tent.

Morkel, too, Colvin had not failed to observe occupying the same seat as yesterday. But Morkel had turned on a wooden expression of countenance, and avoided catching his eye. Clearly Morkel believed in the maxim anent self-preservation. He had a wholesome fear of drawing suspicion upon himself.

"We will first hear the testimony of Adrian De la Rey," said the Commandant.

Colvin managed to repress the astonishment he felt as Adrian came forward. The latter differed in outward trappings from the other burghers only in the fact that his get-up was smarter. He, too, avoided Colvin's glance.

"Tell your story," said the Commandant shortly. But before the other had said half a dozen words, Colvin interposed:

"Excuse me, Mynheer Commandant. But in taking evidence it is usual and indispensable to take it on oath--to swear the witness to tell the truth. Now this has not yet been done."

It was just possible some advantage might be gained by this formula being observed, but Colvin did not reckon it would amount to much.

Morkel, however, put in a word in favour of the suggestion, and accordingly Adrian was sworn after the usual Dutch method, with his right hand held up. Then he proceeded to tell his story.

As one of the field-captains of the burgher force it had been his duty to go the round of the sentries. Two mounted guard over the place wherein Frank Wenlock was confined, namely, the stable at the back of Gideon Roux' house. The door was locked with a strong padlock, and there was one window, which was iron barred, and fairly strong. One sentry was stationed beneath this, and the other before the door. When he arrived at the stable he was surprised that the sentries gave him no recognition, but, on examining further into the matter, he found they were both asleep. Moreover, he could hardly wake them, and when he did, they excused themselves by saying that the Englishman in the camp--not the prisoner, but the other Englishman--had given them a _soepje_ out of his flask. His first thought being for the security of the prisoner-- the witness had ordered the door to be opened. But the key could not be found. It had been in the first sentry's keeping. Then having called several times to the prisoner inside, and receiving no answer, the witness had caused the door to be broken open. The prisoner had vanished.

This had happened at about twelve o'clock. But half an hour earlier he had met Colvin Kershaw wandering through the camp, and they had stood chatting for a while. Kershaw had told him he had been at Gideon Roux'

house, and was returning to his tent. After his discovery of the escape he, Adrian, had thought of arresting the accused, but had placed his tent under guard until the morning.

"The accused man says it was under guard all night," said the Commandant. "Do you know anything of such a guard?"

"Nothing whatever, Mynheer."

Now, indeed, the whole mystery was clearing up, decided Colvin, but clearing in such wise as would be disastrous, if not fatal, for himself, Adrian De la Rey was the prime mover then in this matter. Adrian had every motive for destroying him, and now Adrian had concocted this plot for his destruction. He saw through it now, and his heart sank within him. Schoeman and his crew would be willing accomplices. He had no friends here in this camp, and he knew, all too well, that no chance would be allowed him of communicating with those he had elsewhere. Now he claimed his right of cross-examining witnesses. At first the "court"

was not inclined to allow this. Of what use was it? It savoured of the blasphemous. G.o.d-fearing burghers, who had sworn to tell the truth, and had called G.o.d to witness, could not lie. But he pressed his point and, being supported by Morkel, carried it.

Not much good did it do him, however, with this witness. Not all his cross-examination could shake this tissue of amazing lies which Adrian reeled off with a glibness which imposed on his hearers up to the hilt.

Everything he had said he stuck to; doing it, too, with a sorrowful and against-the-grain air. This Englishman with all his lawyer tricks could not shake that honest and simple testimony, decided these unsophisticated burghers, and all his efforts at doing so only served to deepen the adverse feeling.

The two sentries were then called, and their testimony exactly corresponded with that of Adrian! They were somewhat heavy-looking young men--brothers, named Hattingh. Asked what the drink consisted of, they thought it was whisky. It was not square-face or _dop_? No; they were sure it was whisky. All Englishmen drank whisky; therefore, decided the hearers, the man who gave them the drink must have been this Englishman.

Both brothers had the same tale to tell, and they told it so glibly, so naturally, as to puzzle even the accused himself. They were of the type that do not make good liars--that is, in the sense of ability to sustain a series of consistent and circ.u.mstantial lies; indeed, had he been an impartial auditor of their testimony, instead of one vitally concerned therewith, he was forced to own to himself that he would have believed it. Such being the case, it was hardly to be wondered at if those who heard it believed every word.

These witnesses knew this Englishman, but not very well. They had seen him sometimes about the camp, and when he came up and chatted to them, and offered them something to drink, they were only too glad, for the nights up here in the Wildschutsberg were chilly, and a drop of something warmed a man.

And here we will digress briefly to explain that what would have been a very serious offence for all concerned, in the British regular, or even irregular forces, const.i.tuted just no offence at all in a Boer commando.

For a Boer commando represents a chronic state of "marching-at-ease,"

and the fact of a couple of sentries having a chat with a comrade and a "nip" out of his flask was nothing.

Both these men Colvin cross-questioned, not at any length, and in a conciliatory tone, and his main points were as to how they could be sure of his ident.i.ty in the dark, especially as they had owned to being personally unacquainted with him. But the questions seemed genuinely to surprise them. For one thing, it was not so dark. The stars were shining very brightly. A Boer was not an Englishman that he could not see out of doors by starlight.