f a
firebrand of the most dangerous nature, he had preached an
anti-British _jehad_ with all the force of his ecclesiastical
rhetoric. Yet his three sons were of other clay. One, a staunch
trooper of Thorneycroft's, had died a soldier's death on Spion Kop's
shell-swept summit; another, an athlete of no mean order, had served
in Lord Robert's bodyguard; while the third was still fighting against
the people of his kind as an officer in some other British corps. The
two daughters, both married to _veldt kornets_, were already widows it
may be, for the irony of fate is infinite, by their brothers' rifles.

We found one Britisher in Luckhoff, and he was a Scotsman. His story
was plausible; but though it had satisfied other column commanders, it
did not find the same credence with our brigadier. According to the
man's statement he was neutral. Had been neutral since the outbreak of
war. He was an engineer in the Koffyfontein mines, and since these had
closed down he had come to Luckhoff and made a living by
market-gardening. Two circumstances conspired against the continued
freedom of this so-called Scotsman. The first was the fact that he
quoted our Intelligence guide as a reference for his good conduct; the
second, that we had found a steam flour-mill at work in the vicinity,
and circumstantial evidence pointed to our market-gardener as the
_mechanicien_ in charge. This being given as the real reason for his
presence in the hamlet, there was no need for his sojourn to be
continued, as we had closed down the safety-valve until the boiler
burst, and wrecked the mechanism of the engine. Flour-mills, even when
worked by market-gardeners of doubtful neutrality, can be of service
to a starving enemy.

The brigadier determined to halt a little in Luckhoff to procure if
possible more definite information. About midday this information
came, from both ordinary and extraordinary channels. As the
headquarters sat at lunch a mounted messenger arrived from Orange
River,--a small spare Hottentot or Griqua, who weighed about five
stone, and who had been put upon a horse and told to cover fifteen
miles an hour until he found us. The message he brought was in point
of fact a confirmation of the information which we had gleaned already
from our prisoners of the preceding evening. "De Wet, and with him the
President," ran the message, "crossed the Orange River at Botha's
Drift at three o'clock to-day (yesterday). By mistake gap in circle
l