At last events began to shape themselves.  We learnt that the Governor had left Pretoria on January 15, and that the military prisoners, including most of the troopers, were to be sent home to England immediately, for the leaders to stand their trial.  The same morning I heard privately that Mr. Rhodes meant to leave by that very evening’s mail-steamer for England, to face the inquiry which would certainly ensue, and, if possible, to save the Charter of that Company with which he had so indissolubly connected himself, and which was, so to speak, his favourite child.  I remember everyone thought then that this Charter would surely be confiscated, on account of the illegal proceedings of its forces.

The fact of Mr. Rhodes’s departure was kept a profound secret, as he wished to avoid any demonstration.  The mail-steamer was the even then antiquated Moor of the Union Line, and she was lying a quarter of a mile away from the docks, awaiting her mail-bags and her important passengers.  Besides Mrs. Harry Lawson and ourselves, Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Beit, and Dr. Rutherford Harris, the two latter of whom were also going to England, embarked quite unnoticed on a small launch, ostensibly to make a tour of the harbour, which as a matter of fact we did, whilst waiting for the belated mail.  An object of interest was the chartered P. and O. transport Victoria, which had only the day before arrived from Bombay, with the Lancashire Regiment, 1,000 strong, on board, having been suddenly stopped here on her way home, pessimists at once declaring the reason to be possible trouble with Germany.  A very noble appearance she presented that afternoon, with her lower decks and portholes simply swarming with red-coats, who appeared to take a deep interest in our movements.  At last we boarded the mail-steamer, and then I had the chance of a few words with the travellers, and of judging how past events had affected them.  Mr. Beit looked ill and worried; Mr. Rhodes, on the other hand, seemed to be in robust health, and as calm as the proverbial cucumber.  I had an interesting talk to him before we left the ship; he said frankly that, for the first time in his life, during six nights of the late crisis he had not been able to sleep, and that he had been worried to death.

“Now,” he added, “I have thought the whole matter out, I have decided what is best to be done, so I am all right again, and I do not consider at forty-three that my career is ended.”

“I am quite sure it is not, Mr. Rhodes,” was my reply; “and, what is more, I have a small bet with Mr. Lawson that in a year’s time you will be in office again, or, if not absolutely in office, as great a factor in South African politics as you have been up to now.”

He thought a minute, and then said: