away,
hounded by his guilty conscience, and meanwhile I could escape.

She never thought the thing out in all its details, she who was maddened
with terror and had no time. She only felt her way from step to step,
dimly seeing my deliverance at the end of the journey. Marie told the
Vrouw Prinsloo nothing, except that she proposed to drug me if I would
not go undrugged. Then the vrouw must hide me as best she could, in the
grain-pit or elsewhere, or, if I had my senses about me, let me hide
myself. Afterwards she, Marie, would face the Boers and tell them to
find me if they wanted me.

The vrouw answered that she had now thought of a better plan. It was
that she should arrange with her husband and son and the Meyers, all
of whom loved me, that they should rescue me, or if need be, kill or
disable Pereira before he could shoot me.

Marie replied that this was good if it could be done, and the vrouw
went out to find her husband and the other men. Presently, however, she
returned with a long face, saying that the commandant had them all
under guard. It seemed that it had occurred to him, or more probably
to Pereira, that the Prinsloos and the Meyers, who looked on me as a
brother, might attempt some rescue, or make themselves formidable in
other ways. Therefore, as a matter of precaution, they had been put
under arrest and their arms taken from them as mine had been. What the
commandant said, however, was that he took these somewhat high-handed
measures in order to be sure that they, the Prinsloos and the Meyers,
should be ready on the following morning to ride with him and the
prisoner to the main camp, where the great council might wish to
interrogate them.

One concession, however, the vrouw had won from the commandant, who,
knowing what was about to happen to me, had not, I suppose, the heart to
refuse. It was that my wife and she might visit me and give me food on
the stipulation that they both left the house where I was confined by
ten o'clock that night.

So it came to this, that if anything was to be done, these two women
and a Hottentot must do it, since they could hope for no help in their
plans. Here I should add that the vrouw told Marie in Hans's presence
that she had thought of attacking the commandant as to this matter of my
proposed shooting by Pereira. On reflection, however, she refrained for
two reasons, first because she feared lest she might only make matters
worse and rob me of my sole helpers,