e in tones which admitted of no discussion that she had far too
much affection for Rhodes not to have been so entirely cut to the core by
his duplicity in regard to her and by his whole conduct in that
unfortunate matter of the Raid. She could trust him no longer, she told
me, and, consequently, a meeting with him would only give her unutterable
pain and revive memories that had better remain undisturbed. "Had I cared
for him less I would not say so to you," she added, "but you must know
that of all sad things the saddest is the destruction of idols one has
built for oneself."

This attitude on the part of the one friend he had the greatest affection
for was one of the many episodes which embittered Rhodes.

CHAPTER V.

RHODES AND THE RAID

After the Raid, faithful to his usual tactics of making others responsible
for his own misdeeds, Cecil Rhodes grew to hate with ferocity all those
whose silence and quiet disapproval reminded him of the fatal error into
which he had been led. He was loud in his expressions of resentment
against Mr. Schreiner and the other members of the Afrikander party who
had not been able to conceal from him their indignation at his conduct on
the memorable occasion which ruined his own political life. They had
compelled him--one judged by his demeanour--to resign his office of Prime
Minister at the very time when he was about to transform it into something
far more important--to use it as the stepping-stone to future grandeurs of
which he already dreamt, although he had so far refrained from speaking
about them to others. Curious to say, however, he never blamed the authors
of this political mistake, and never, in public at least, reproached
Jameson for the disaster he had brought upon him.

What his secret thoughts were on this subject it is easy to guess.
Circumstances used to occur now and then when a stray word spoken on
impulse allowed one to discern that he deplored the moment of weakness
into which he had been inveigled. For instance, during a dinner-party at
Groote Schuur, when talking about the state of things prevailing in
Johannesburg just before the war, he mentioned the names of five Reformers
who, after the Raid, had been condemned to death by President Kruger, and
added that he had paid their fine of twenty-five thousand pounds each.
"Yes," he continued, with a certain grim accent of satire in his voice, "I
paid L25,000 for each of these gentlemen." And when one of his