sengers alighted on
the platform, but there was not a prisoner to be seen. The desperate
women walked up and down, keenly scrutinising every face they passed,
until they heard a well-known, highly excited voice calling out
"Mother! Mother!" to them from behind. They turned and saw their hero
tumbling from the train, an armed Tommy at his heels.

There are no memories of the moments such as those which followed.

Things must have been rather bad, for when Hansie looked round again
the armed soldier had turned away and was slowly walking in another
direction. Blessed, thrice-blessed Tommy!

To this day when Hansie thinks of him she remembers with a pang that
she did not shake hands with him.

"May we walk with the prisoner as far as the Johannesburg Fort?"
Hansie asked.

"Certainly, miss."

How the people stared and turned round in the street to stare again!

And now that I come to think of it, it must have looked remarkable--a
ruffianly-looking man, carrying a disreputable bundle of blankets, a
tin cup and water-bottle slung across his shoulders all clanking
together, and a small _Bible_ in his hands, with a well-dressed lady
on each arm and an armed soldier behind, guarding the whole!

The prisoner was a sight! The old felt hat was full of holes, through
which the unkempt hair was sticking, and the dirty black suit was torn
and greasy-looking--but the face, except for the moustache and
unfamiliar beard, was the same, the look of love in the blue eyes
unchanged.

It seemed like a dream, incredibly sweet and strange, to be walking
through the streets of Johannesburg in uninterrupted conversation,
carried on _in Dutch,_ with him, and to be able to ask the burning
questions with which their hearts had been filled all day--why he was
alone, where he had left Fritz, how and where he had been captured.

Everything was explained on that memorable walk, simply and briefly
explained, for the time was short, and under the circumstances Dietlof
would not give any details of information concerning the war,
considering himself bound to silence by the guard's trust in him.

He had been promoted to the position of commandeering officer by
General Kemp and had been in the habit, for some time past, of leaving
his commando for days at a stretch on commandeering expeditions.

About four days before his capture he had left his people again for
the same purpose, and on this occasion he had fled before the enemy
for three days