wash your face and we will have
supper."

Carolus ventured no reply, and was led away by his betrothed half
blinded and utterly subdued, while her sister set the table for the
evening meal. When it was ready the men sat down to meat and the women
waited on them. John was not asked to join them, but one of the girls
threw him a boiled mealiecob, for which, being still very hungry, he
was duly grateful, and afterwards he managed to secure a mutton bone and
another bit of bread.

When supper was over, some bottles of peach brandy were produced, and
the Boers began to drink freely, and then it was that matters commenced
to look dangerous for the Englishman. Suddenly one of the men remembered
about the young fellow whom John had thrown backwards off the horse, and
who was lying very sick in the next room, and suggested that measures of
retaliation should be taken, which would undoubtedly have been done if
the elderly Boer who had commanded the party had not interposed. This
man was getting drunk like the others, but fortunately for John he grew
amiably drunk.

"Let him alone," he said, "let him alone. We will send him to the
commandant to-morrow. Frank Muller will know how to deal with him."

John thought to himself that he certainly would.

"Now, for myself," the man went on with a hiccough, "I bear no malice.
We have thrashed the British and they have given up the country, so let
bygones be bygones, I say. Almighty, yes! I am not proud, not I. If an
Englishman takes off his hat to me I shall acknowledge it."

This staved the fellows off for a while, but presently John's protector
went away, and then the others became playful. They took their rifles
and amused themselves with levelling them at him, and making sham bets
as to where they would hit him. John, seeing the emergency, backed his
chair well into the corner of the wall and drew his revolver, which
fortunately for himself he still had.

"If any man interferes with me, by God, I'll shoot him!" he said in
good English, which they did not fail to understand. Undoubtedly as
the evening went on it was only the possession of this revolver and his
evident determination to use it that saved his life.

At last things grew very bad indeed, so bad that John found it
absolutely necessary to keep his eyes continually fixed, now on one and
now on another, to prevent their putting a bullet through him unawares.
He had twice appealed to the old woman, but she sat in her bi