lls like a porcupine
if one wakes him," was the answer.

"Then let us keep the damned preaching Englishman till to-morrow."

"Pray let me go on, gentlemen," said John, still in his mildest voice.
"I am wanted to preach the Word at Pretoria, and to watch by the wounded
and dying."

"Yes, yes," said the first man, "there will soon be plenty of wounded
and dying there. They will all be like the _rooibaatjes_ at Bronker's
Spruit. Lord, what a sight that was! But they will get the Bishop, so
they won't want you. You can stop and look after our wounded if the
_rooibaatjes_ manage to hit any of us." And he beckoned to him to come
out of the cart.

"Hullo!" said the other man, "here is a bag of mealies. We will
commandeer that, anyhow." And he took his knife and cut the line with
which the sack was fastened to the back of the cart, so that it fell
to the ground. "That will feed our horses for a week," he said with a
chuckle, in which the other man joined. It was pleasant to become so
easily possessed of an unearned increment in the shape of a bag of
mealies.

"Well, are we to get the old crow go?" said the first man.

"If we don't let him go we shall have to take him up to headquarters,
and I want to sleep." And he yawned.

"Well, let him go," said the other. "I think you are right. The pass
said two carts. Be off, you damned preaching Englishman!"

John did not wait for any more, but laid the whip across the horses'
backs with a will.

"I hope we did right," said the man with the lantern to the other as the
cart bumped off. "I am not sure he was a preacher after all. I have
half a mind to send a bullet after him." But his companion, who was very
sleepy, gave no encouragement to the idea, so it dropped.

On the following morning when Commandant Frank Muller--having heard that
his enemy John Niel was on his way up with the Cape cart and four grey
horses--ascertained that a vehicle answering to that description had
been allowed to pass through Heidelberg in the dead of night, his state
of mind may better be imagined than described.

As for the two sentries, he tried them by court-martial and sent them to
make fortifications for the rest of the rebellion. Now they can neither
of them hear the name of a clergyman mentioned without breaking out into
a perfect flood of blasphemy.

Luckily for John, although he had been delayed for five minutes or more,
he managed to overtake the cart in which he presumed the Bishop was