I actually met you, my friend, for the first time that evening, and in trouble too, though you may have forgotten the incident.  We had made a mistake about the time of dinner, and arriving half an hour too soon, were shown into a long room that opened on to the verandah.  You were working there, being I believe a private secretary at the time, copying some despatch; I think you said that which gave an account of the Annexation.  The room was lit by a paraffin lamp behind you, for it was quite dark and the window was open, or at any rate unshuttered.  The gentleman who showed us in, seeing that you were very busy, took us to the far end of the room, where we stood talking in the shadow.  Just then a door opened opposite to that which led to the verandah, and through it came His Excellency the Administrator, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, a stout man of medium height with a very clever, thoughtful face, as I have always thought, one of the greatest of African statesmen.  He did not see us, but he caught sight of you and said testily—­

“Are you mad?” To which you answered with a laugh—­

“I hope not more than usual, Sir, but why?”

“Have I not told you always to let down the blinds after dark?  Yet there you sit with your head against the light, about the best target for a bullet that could be imagined.”

“I don’t think the Boers would trouble to shoot me, Sir.  If you had been here I would have drawn the blinds and shut the shutters too,” you answered, laughing again.

“Go to dress or you will be late for dinner,” he said still rather sternly, and you went.  But when you had gone and after we had been announced to him, he smiled and added something which I will not repeat to you even now.  I think it was about what you did on the Annexation day of which the story had come to him.

I mention this incident because whenever I think of Shepstone, whom I had known off and on for years in the way that a hunter knows a prominent Government official, it always recurs to my mind, embodying as it does his caution and appreciation of danger derived from long experience of the country, and the sternness he sometimes affected which could never conceal his love towards his friends.  Oh! there was greatness in this man, although they did call him an “African Talleyrand.”  If it had not been so would every native from the Cape to the Zambesi have known and revered his name, as perhaps that of no other white man has been revered?  But I must get on with my tale and leave historical discussions to others more fitted to deal with them.

We had a very pleasant dinner that night, although I was so ashamed of my clothes with smart uniforms and white ties all about me, and Anscombe kept fidgeting his feet because he was suffering agony from his new pumps which were a size too small.  Everybody was in the best of spirits, for from all directions came the news that the Annexation was well received and that the danger of any trouble had passed away.  Ah! if we had only known what the end of it would be!