s a
struggle for life and death between us and them. To this end they have
been working. To this end have they been throwing all their adventurers
into our land. Yes; how many from this country, this very British
colony you are so proud to belong to, have come to us without a penny--
unable even so much as to make a living under the British flag--have
come to us on the very verge of bankruptcy, and actually through it--to
make not merely a living, but in many cases large fortunes? And these
are the people with a grievance! These are the people who fatten on our
land, and then want to seize it because it is richer than theirs. That
is why they desire the franchise, that they may oust the burghers who
fought for their independence; whose fathers shed their blood like water
in withstanding the heathen savage, who went forth determined never
again to submit to the English yoke."

"That is true," rejoined the other. "Yet it seems to me that it is
because of them that the country has become rich. Had they not come
there, what then? Who would have worked the gold and the mines?"

"We could have done without the gold and the mines," was the fiery
response. "We did not desire them. We were better as we were. And
look, brother. Did these Uitlanders come into our land to benefit our
land? If so, why do they not stay there when they have enriched
themselves out of it? Do they? Not so. They return to spend the
wealth they have made out of us among the Babylon sinks of vice, the
large cities of Europe. They came into the land to enrich themselves,
certainly not to enrich our land. But now that it is rich they want to
seize it."

The listener made no immediate reply. He sat in troubled meditation,
his brow clouded. The speaker, watched him the while with a kind of
hungering anxiety. This was the man he desired to win over, a man of
weight and standing, whose influence thrown into the scale would bring
hundreds to the Afrikander cause and confirm hundreds more who might be
wavering. He went on:

"Everything is ready now. The President will never yield to their
demands, and even if he would the burghers will never allow it. If we
gave them the five years' franchise they would then ask for two, then
for none at all. And where would we be? Where would we be, I ask you,
remembering the shameful attempt upon us three years ago? Mark now,
brother. We are about to put forth our strength. We know our strength,