Letters came from friends in Johannesburg begging my husband not to return, and cables from the United States to the same effect.  The sentence was sure to be a death sentence or a term of long imprisonment.

From important sources, which for obvious reasons I cannot quote, I received private messages and letters informing of a plan on foot to lynch the leaders.  The beam from which four Boers had been hung years before at Schlaagter’s Nek (Oh! that poisonous suggestion in the ‘Volksstem’) had already been brought from the Colony for this special purpose.  Mr. Manion, the Consular Agent, and Mr. K.B.  Brown, an American just arrived in Cape Town from the Rand, took me aside and laid the case in all its bare brutality before me. To allow my husband to return to Pretoria was for him to meet certain death.  If he were not lynched by the excited Boers, he was sure to get a death sentence.  Mr. Brown showed feeling as he plead with me to use a wife’s influence to save her husband’s life.  My head was swimming.  I could only repeat in a dull, dogged way:  ’He says his honour takes him back.  He is the father of my sons, and I’d rather see him dead than dishonoured.’

Somehow I got to my room, and the page-boy stumbled over me at the door some time afterward, and ran for Mrs. Cavanagh.  When I felt a little recovered, I put on my hat, and, not waiting for my husband’s return from an appointment with Dr. Thomas, I drove to the office of Mr. Rose Innes.  He was not in, and his clerk declared he did not know when he would be in.  ’Very well, then; I’ll wait until he does come in.’

I was given a comfortable chair, and a dictionary was dusted and placed under my feet.  Mr. Rose Innes at length appeared.  He was greatly astonished to find me waiting for him.  I began abruptly:  ’Dear Mr. Innes, I am in need of a friend; my distress is so great that I can no longer distinguish right from wrong.’  I told him everything; showed him the letters which I had received, and, facing him, asked, ’What is my duty?  I can appeal to my husband—­for my sake, to save the life of our child—­and perhaps dissuade him! My God, it is a temptation!’

Mr. Rose Innes sat deep in thought.

’If you think his going back is a needless throwing away of a valuable life,’ I began, with a timid hope beginning to grow in my heart—­’I will chloroform him and have him taken to sea!’

Mr. Rose Innes leaned forward, and took my hand gently between his own:  ’Mrs. Hammond, your husband is doing the right thing in going back; don’t try to dissuade him.  If he were my own brother I would say the same’—­and I accepted his decision.

For a further strong but ineffectual effort to gain a few days’ longer leave of absence for Mr. Hammond, I am indebted to this good friend.  Also for many personal kindnesses which I can never forget.  Miss Louisa Rhodes was a most helpful friend as well; the anxiety in common brought us very close together.  She was a veritable fairy-godmother, bringing us wines and dainty food from Groote Schuur’s well-stocked larder to tempt us to eat.