great hand constantly
rested. On one side of him sat "Mynheer," as the local _predikant_, or
minister, is commonly known among his flock; on the other Jan Marthinus
Grobbelaar--or Swaart Jan, as he was popularly termed--the owner of the
farm on which the gathering was taking place. The minister was a puffy,
consequential-looking man, with long, shaven upper lip and a light beard
cut after the pattern of that worn by the world-famed President, a white
tie, reaching nearly from shoulder to shoulder, standing aggressively
forth from the clerical black. The farmer was a wizened individual,
with a pronounced stoop, and, at first sight, of retiring temperament;
but a long nose and deep-set eyes, together with two teeth projecting
tusk-like from each corner of the mouth out upon a lank, grizzled beard,
imparted to him an utterly knowing and foxy aspect, in keeping with the
reputation "Swaart Jan" actually held among his kinsfolk and
acquaintance.

The delegate from Pretoria was in full blast. The meeting, which had
opened with long prayer by the _predikant_ and a long speech of
introduction and welcome from Swaart Jan Grobbelaar, was now just
beginning to become of intense interest--to the meeting itself.
Beginning far back, with the insurrection under Adrian van Jaarsveldt
and the capitulation of the Cape by General Janssens, the orator had
hitherto been rather academical. Even the emancipation of the slaves,
with its wholly farcical system of compensation, did not appeal over
much to a younger generation, to whom it was all ancient history of
rather too ancient date. But when he came to the Slagter's Nek tragedy,
he had got his finger on a chord that would never cease to vibrate. The
tense attitude of his listeners was that of one mind, of one
understanding.

"Brothers," he went on. "Brothers--and sons--for many are here to-night
who are the men of the future--the men of the very near future--to whom
the one long life-struggle of their fathers in days of old is but a
name; to whom, however, the righting of the wrongs of their fathers is
bequeathed; to whom life--yea, even life itself, has been given and
allowed by the Lord above that they may carry out the solemn bequest of
righteous vengeance which their fathers have handed down to them; that
they may have ever before them, ever in their thoughts, the deliverance
of this their dear land, their splendid fatherland, from the hated
English yoke. You then--you younge