The Petticoat Commando Part 37

That night as Hansie lay on her sleepless pillow, she felt as if all the batteries of the gold mines were thumping on her heart.

Mrs. Malan's last words to her rang continually in her ears:

"Willie Botha will be executed without a doubt."

But before day dawned Hansie's heart was at rest and she slept, for she had solved the problem in her mind.

She would go to General Maxwell and plead with him for the life of her friend.

He was human and tender-hearted, that she knew, and she would tell him how an innocent young life hung in the balance, how the lives of both mother and child would be imperilled if such a cruel fate befell the father. If her pleadings were of no avail, she would offer to give, in exchange for his life, the name of one well known to her as a dangerous enemy to the English.

And when she had made sure of his release, hers would be the name she would reveal.

During the dark days which followed Hansie found her strong support in the thought of this resolve.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: The writer was misinformed on this point. After the age of fourteen, boys are liable to be executed.]

CHAPTER XXVIII

HANSIE EARNING THE VOTE

Events moved quickly in those days.

The conspirators had hardly had time to recover from the shock of the recent arrests, they were just beginning to wonder what would happen if their unsuspecting friends from commando walked into the pitfalls prepared for them, racking their brains for plans to avert such a catastrophe, when the very thing they feared took place.

Instead of the familiar figure of Willie Botha coming up the garden path with news, Mrs. Malan drove up with Jannie Joubert's fiancee, Miss Malan.

Their appearance at Harmony brought all that had happened most forcibly to the minds of the stricken inmates, filling them with the sense of acute loss; and when they heard what their visitors had to tell, four women more forlorn would have been hard to find.

In short sentences Mrs. Malan told how four young men, all ignorant of the fate of their fellows in town, had tried to come in from the High Veld, bearing with them dispatches from Captain Naude to the President and to the Committee of spies in town.

These men had gone to and fro for months without a single encounter with outpost or guard, but on this occasion, when they reached the wire enclosure, they were unexpectedly met by a storm of bullets.

One of them, as he stooped to get through the fence, felt the hot air of a bullet pa.s.sing under his nose.

He hastily gave the order to retreat over the "koppies" and across the railway line, thus entering Pretoria on the opposite side.

When they met again, before entering the town, one of them was missing!

Young Els had disappeared, and no one knew whether he had been shot or taken, or whether he had fallen into some hole and perhaps been so severely injured that he could not follow them. His comrades were in deep distress. To go back and search for him was impossible, so they entered the town at the utmost peril of their lives. Torn and bleeding, they slunk through the streets of Pretoria, avoiding the light of the electric lamps, and concealing themselves behind trees at the sight of every man in khaki, until they reached Mrs. Malan's house.

Their guardian angels must have kept them from going to Mrs. Joubert's house, as usual, that night.

Imagine their surprise and horror when they heard of the betrayal of the Committee, for the warning sent out to Skurveberg did not reach them, they having come from the High Veld.

The news of Jannie's arrest and of Mrs. Joubert's house having been searched, and now being so closely watched that they could not possibly take shelter there, came as a crushing blow.

True to her word, Mrs. Malan determined to shelter them that night, but the house being too dangerous a hiding-place, they were stowed away in Mr. David Malan's waggon-house, closely packed in one small waggon, and there they still lay when the van Warmelos heard of their arrival.

From the bosom of her dress Miss Malan produced the dispatches and a number of private letters.

The dispatch to the President Hansie offered to send by the first opportunity, without telling her friends that it would go by the very next mail per White Envelope. This was a secret she naturally could not divulge to her most trusted fellow-workers, although she could guarantee that the work would be carried out, and they had enough confidence in her to leave the matter in her hands.

The letter from the Captain to the Committee was left at Harmony to be read and destroyed. Needless to say, Hansie, with her mania for collecting war-curios, made a full copy of both letter and dispatch in lemon-juice before regretfully consigning them to the flames. It was hard to destroy original doc.u.ments for which such risks had been run!

What was most disconcerting was to hear that the authorities, evidently aware that the men had come through in spite of having been fired upon, were searching for them in town. It was imperative that they should leave that day, or at least as soon as night fell, for the risk they ran was very great.

Hansie promised to think of some way of helping them to escape safely, and said she would see them in the afternoon.

The feeling of responsibility on her young shoulders was very great.

There was no one to turn to, no man to whom this dangerous mission could be entrusted, except one, her young friend, F.

She thought of him and wondered whether she could confide to him a scheme which had been slowly forming in her mind.

That afternoon she was on the point of leaving for Mrs. Malan's house, with a packet of letters and newspapers, when two lady callers arrived at Harmony br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the news that the town was in a great state of excitement. Armed soldiers were patrolling the streets, men were stopped to show their residential pa.s.ses, and every cab and carriage was held up for inspection.

The general opinion was that there were spies in town, for the lower part of the town and west of Market Street were cut off by a patrol, while a systematic search of the private houses was being carried on.

Hansie chafed at the delay, listening with impatience to their excited talk, and wondering what they would say if they knew that she was on the point of going to those spies with the parcel in her hands.

By a happy coincidence, when the callers had taken their departure, another visitor arrived--F., the very man she wished to see.

But he, too, was full of the excitement in town and did not notice the unusual anxiety in Hansie's manner.

"General Botha has come in 'to negotiate,'" he said. "The town is alive with soldiers, but there must be something else brewing at the same time, for every house is being searched, and a cordon has been drawn round some parts of the town. It is impossible for any one to get through from one place to another beyond Market Street."

Hansie's heart sank for a moment.

Then she said: "I have to go to town at once, F.; will you come with me? I have a great deal to tell you and we can talk as we go along.

You remember you once said that I must come to you if ever I got into any trouble. Well, I am in serious trouble now--not for myself--but, tell me, have you your residential pa.s.s with you?"

He produced it.

She continued: "Then we are safe for the present. Let us sit in the Park while I tell you in what way I want you to help me."

They found a secluded spot under one of the trees in Burgher's Park, and there Hansie took him into her confidence, unfolding her plan to him.

"If, as you say, F., a cordon is being drawn around the houses that have already been searched, those three men may be cut off at any moment. They cannot wait where they are at present, no more can they show themselves on the streets without residential pa.s.ses. If you can help me to borrow three pa.s.ses for them, I myself will walk with them as far as the wire enclosure and bring the pa.s.ses back to you."

F. whistled, called her "plucky," but thought the whole thing far too risky.