We pushed on until late that night, when we reached Vrede.  Here we learnt that the column which Lord Roberts had sent back from Johannesburg had just entered Reitz.  The next day we turned our horses’ heads towards Bethlehem, seeing a fair amount of game during the day’s ride.  Darkness found us still travelling onward.  A few miles to our right a crimson glare lit up the heavens—­a grass fire started by the British column, and an unmistakable danger-signal for us.

We were now very close to the enemy, and might expect to meet a patrol at any moment.  Whilst riding along in the dense gloom we heard loud voices a few hundred yards ahead of us.  Turning out of the road, we rode on the grass so as to make no noise, and carefully approached.  Upon getting nearer we found it was some natives driving cattle into a kraal.  Near by was a farmhouse, and thither we went.  Only the womenfolk were at home.  We quickly reassured them—­for every stranger was taken for an Englishman—­and were asked to stay for the night.  Presently the farmer himself arrived—­he had been out watching the enemy.

“They will pass here to-morrow,” he said, “then I shall go on that hill yonder and knock over a few of them.  I had a fine chance to shoot to-day, but did not want to put them on their guard.”

“But don’t you think it would be better to join a commando and help in making an organised resistance?  You may kill a few of the enemy by hanging about in twos and threes, but what difference will that make in the end?”

“You mean us to act like the dervishes at Omdurman?  I’m afraid you don’t understand the affair, my son.  We do belong to a commando, as a matter of fact, but we are scouts entrusted with the duty of keeping in constant touch with the enemy.  If in the execution of this duty we see an opportunity to shoot a few of the enemy, are we to hold our hand because we happen to be only two or three?”

“I should think not.  But the enemy call it sniping, and I have heard them say that snipers get no quarter.  And if you fire on a column near here they will come and burn this house down.”

“It is not for me,” he replied, “to consider my own interests.  I have my orders and must carry them out.  What!  Are we, who have lost sons, brothers, friends—­are we, I say, to think of our property now?  No!  Let everything go, strip us to the bone, but leave us our liberty!  It is not for ourselves that we battle and suffer, but for posterity.  It is for the birthright of our children—­freedom.  We are no servile Hindoos to meekly bow beneath the foreign yoke!  They have put their hands to the plough, but they will find it stubborn land, land that they will grow weary of manuring with the bodies of their sons!  And all for what?  To raise a crop of thistles and thorns, for that is all they’ll ever get out of us!”

“And it strikes me the end of the furrow is still out of sight.”

“My boy,” he said earnestly, “this furrow has no end!”