After the death sentence had been pronounced and the Court dismissed, Mrs. Joel, with woman’s thoughtfulness, put a flask of brandy in her pocket and started for the prison.  In the confusion of receiving the prisoners she managed to slip in and went at once to the condemned cell.  Her visit was a God-send to the four unhappy men, who were much worn by months of anxiety, ill-health, and this final strain of the death sentence.  They were bearing up wonderfully well, she said.

One of the lawyers came and sat at the end of my sofa.  He burst into tears.  ‘We’ve been played! we’ve been played!’ he exclaimed, with vehemence.  Remembering how the lawyers for the Reformers had muddled everything from the beginning of the trial, how they had conscientiously and persistently walked into every trap laid for them, I sat upright to look squarely into his face.  ’My God! when haven’t you been played?’

The effect of the death sentence on Johannesburg was extreme:  all shops and the Stock Exchange were closed, and the flags of the town were placed at half mast.

This, from the ‘Standard and Diggers’ News’—­a tribute from the enemy’s paper—­goes to my heart:—­

’One respects the probity of the man who, dangerously ill and totally unfit for the hardship of a prison, preferred to take his stand in the dock, rather than sacrifice his self-respect by flight from Cape Town; Mr. Hammond has worthily upheld the reputation of a nation which claims its sons as men who “never run away."’

It was decided by the Executive this same night to commute the death sentence, but this was not communicated to the condemned men until the following morning.  The night of suspense passed under the eye of the death watch with a dim light burning was a needless cruelty; it made the President’s subsequent magnanimity more dramatic, but with that I naturally felt no sympathy.

I have often been asked since if I did not realise that the Boers would never have dared execute my husband?  And many dear friends who were thousands of miles away assure me now that they never had a moment’s real apprehension for his safety.  We however, who were in Pretoria, at the time, a helpless handful in the power of a primitive population of narrow experience, a people inflamed by long years of racial feud and recent victory, were by no means so sure that all would end well.  Two prominent men, standing high in authority, confessed to me later that they were most anxious and fearful of results, although at the time their sustaining support helped to keep my body and soul together. The gallows was prepared, and the order was to hang the four victims simultaneously.