endured, for this was known
to only one or two.

Old friends from South Africa there were in scores, and for the time
the State of Holland was transformed into a colony of Boers, which
seemed complete when the Boer leaders, Botha, de Wet, and de la Rey,
arrived with their staffs. Then it seemed as if the people of Holland
lost their heads entirely, and scenes such as those which took place
daily in the streets are never to be forgotten by those who witnessed
them.

All this, though wonderful, was not the best thing for our heroine,
who was "living on her nerves," though in a different way, as surely
as she did during those cruel years of war.

Added to this she was frequently tried beyond endurance by the
questions:

"Why did the Boers give in? How _could_ the Boers give in and lose
their independence?"

One conversation in particular was burnt into her brain.

"Was it the Concentration Camps?"

"No," the answer came slowly, "no, it was not the Concentration Camps.
The high mortality was past, the weakest had been taken, and there
was no cause for anxiety for those remaining in the Camps. Their
rations had been increased and improved--there was no more of that
first awful suffering."

"What was it, then? The arming of the natives?"

The answer came more slowly:

"No, it was not the arming of the natives. Their forces were more
scattered, for they were chiefly employed in guarding the railway
lines, in protecting stock and guarding block-houses. Though their
addition to the British ranks undoubtedly weakened our strength to
some extent, their inborn respect for the Boer would have prevented
them from ever rendering valuable services to the English. How we
laughed, my sister and I, when, on the railway journey from Pretoria
to Cape Town, we saw the line patrolled by hundreds of these natives,
with gun in hand, stark naked except for a loin-cloth and a bandolier!
So much waste of ammunition! No, the arming of the natives would have
been the last thing to induce the Boers to surrender."

"Then it seems to me incomprehensible! surely death were preferable to
defeat!"

"Yes, a thousand times; but you forget the National Scouts--the
Judas-Boers. _They_ broke our strength. Not by their skill in the use
of arms, not by their knowledge of our country and our methods--no!"

"They broke our strength by breaking our ideals, by crushing our
enthusiasm, by robbing us of our inspiration, our faith, our hope----"

W