The Petticoat Commando Part 55

No reliable information reached our friends at Harmony, for the activities of the Secret Service had ceased entirely--at least, as far as the town was concerned.

Uncertainty, excitement, expectation filled the air, reaching their height on April 12th, when the news of the Boer leaders' arrival at the capital spread like wild-fire through the town.

Steyn, Botha, de Wet, de la Rey, Reitz, and a host of others were amongst "their own" again, under circ.u.mstances of unique importance.

They were not allowed to mix freely with the crowd, but kept in a state of highly honoured captivity in the beautiful double-storied house known as "Parkzicht," opposite Burghers Park, well guarded night and day by armed patrols, who kept the crowd at bay with a friendly "Move on, please," when they touched the limit of their beat.

Mrs. van Warmelo and her two daughters, like so many other citizenesses, lost no opportunity of walking in the neighbourhood of "Parkzicht," and they were fortunate beyond their wildest hopes in being greeted by the Generals on more than one occasion.

One day as they were pa.s.sing they observed the familiar figure of General Botha on the balcony.

They waved their handkerchiefs and there was no doubt about his recognition, for he took off his hat and waved it, kissing both his hands to them.

(General Botha it was who, after the war, said to Mrs. van Warmelo, clasping her hand and looking earnestly into her eyes:

"You have done and risked what even I would not have dared.")

After six or seven days in Pretoria the Boer leaders left for their commandos, to deliberate, with what result Hansie did not know until nearly two months later in mid-ocean, where at a distant isle the news of the declaration of peace was made known to her.

The three women at Harmony now turned their thoughts into another channel.

The mother being far from well herself, arrangements had to be made to leave her in the companionship of some suitable and congenial woman, until her "boys" came home--one from the front, if he were still alive, the other from captivity. A girl friend offered to take Hansie's place at Harmony and promised not to leave Mrs. van Warmelo until the country was in a settled state again.

This was Hansie's only crumb of consolation during those last days at home.

Many difficulties were made about her permits when she applied for leave to go to Holland, and many were the questions asked, her interview with General Maxwell being the least unsatisfactory when she told him of her approaching marriage.

"You may go with pleasure," he had said; but a few days afterwards Hansie received a letter from the Provost-Marshal, saying that "the present regulations do not allow burghers or their families to leave South Africa."

Hansie wrote to Lord Kitchener, but received no reply, and it was nearly the middle of May, after some weeks of uncertainty, harder far to bear than trouble of a more decided character, when she and Mrs.

Cloete left the capital for Cape Colony.

Hansie's last words in her diary are:

"There is quite a history connected with the procuring of my permits, which I shall relate another time. _I am too tired now._"

Words significant of what the girl had endured in parting from her mother and leaving her beloved country at a time so critical!

On an ocean-steamer she found herself at last--alone, for in that crowd there was no face familiar to her to be seen.

She mixed freely with the crowd; she sought, in the games with which these voyages usually are pa.s.sed, to forget--to forget; but the nights of sleeplessness remained--her waking terror, with which she was consumed.

Two men there were who proved sympathetic, one a Scotchman, the other an Englishman--both anti-Boer and sadly misinformed when first she met them, both "converts" by the time they reached their native sh.o.r.es.

Sitting at table she listened intently to the conversations on the war--the war, the never-ending war. On no occasion did she breathe a word of what _she_ knew, of what _she_ felt, until one day at dinner a young English lieutenant, "covered with glory" and returning home a hero of the war, enlarged on the services rendered by one brave officer, well known by name to Hansie.

"It is not only what he achieved with so much success in the field,"

he continued. "I am thinking now of those two years he spent in the Pretoria Forts _before_ the war, as a common labourer, doing menial work with other men, and secretly making plans and drawing charts of the Pretoria fortifications. Every detail was made known to our military before we went to war."

Exclamations of surprise, a murmur of admiration, ran along the table.

Hansie waited until there was a lull, and then she asked:

"The work carried out by him, was it done under oath of allegiance to the Transvaal Government?"

There was one moment's painful silence before the young lieutenant answered, with a laugh:

"Of course; it could not possibly have been done otherwise--but all is fair in love and war."

"War?" Hansie exclaimed--"I thought you said that this was done some years _before_ the war."

"Yes, but we all knew what things were leading to!"

This incident was the first hint among the pa.s.sengers that she was not one of them.

At first they looked at her askance, but as the days went on and the girl steadfastly avoided every allusion to the war, refusing to express her opinions to any one, except the two men mentioned above, the feeling of discomfort pa.s.sed, and she was once again included in the pastimes of the ship's company.

As they were nearing Teneriffe the longing for news, for the latest cables from England and South Africa, possessed every soul on board--and now I find that, search as I will, within the recesses of my mind, for words with which to describe adequately such scenes, brain and hand are powerless.

There was peace in South Africa--peace "with honour" for England, peace _and defeat_ for the Boers!

In a moment the ship's crew went mad, as the wild cheering rolled over the waves.

Hansie stood stupefied until (and strange it is that at a time like this an insignificant detail should stand out in sharp relief against the background of her dulled sensibilities) an hysterical woman ran up to her with outstretched hands, crying:

"Oh, my dear, my dear, let me congratulate you! Let us shake hands!"

The girl, thus taken by surprise in all that crowd, recoiled in shuddering distress, while, with hands clasped convulsively behind, she murmured:

"Oh, I _could not_--I _could not_!"

A wave of deep resentment pa.s.sed over the ship's pa.s.sengers, and hostile eyes looked on her frowningly.

That night, as the good ship was ploughing the waters on her way once more, a solitary figure stood on the deserted decks.

In the saloons great b.u.mpers of champagne were pa.s.sing round, while the strains of "G.o.d save the King" and "Rule Britannia" floated over the ocean waves.

A man in search of her, fearing perhaps, I know not what, approached the drooping figure of the girl, and pressed her hand in silent sympathy.

"There is no peace!" she said. "Do you think I believe these lying cables? The Boers will _never_ yield. If you knew what I know, you would take these reports for what they are worth. I have been trying to think what it all can mean, and this is the conclusion I have come to. If it be true that peace has been proclaimed, then the Boers have preserved their independence, and this last fact has been excluded from the cables in view of the approaching Coronation. But my own conviction is that there is no peace at all, but that these cables have been sent to rea.s.sure the English public, and to make it possible to celebrate the crowning of the King in a splendour unclouded by the horrors of the South African war. Believe me, when the Coronation is over you will hear of a mysterious renewal of hostilities."

The man was silent, troubled. He had not the heart to argue with the girl, perhaps he thought, and rightly thought, that this strange illusion of the brain, this confident belief in her own convictions, would help to tide her over the first days to follow.