knowledge to use it. No, I didn't tell him the
money-value. He was English. He'd send his
valet to find out.
' Well, me and Adrian and a crowd of dam
Dutchmen was sent down the road to Cape Town
in first-class carriages under escort. (What did I
think of your enlisted men ? They are largely
different from ours, Sir: very largely.) As I was
saying, we slid down south, with Adrian looking
out of the car-window and crying. Dutchmen
cry mighty easy for a breed that fights as they do;
but I never understood how a Dutchman could
curse till we crossed into the Orange Free State
Colony, and he lifted up his hand and cursed Steyn
for a solid ten minutes. Then we got into the
Colony, and the rebs—ministers mostly and school-masters—came round the cars with fruit and
sympathy and texts. Van Zyl talked to 'em in
Dutch, and one man, a big red-bearded minister,
at Beaufort West, I remember, he jest wilted on
the platform.
' “Keep your prayers for yourself,” says Van Zyl, throwing back a bunch of grapes. “You'll need 'em, and you'll need the fruit too, when the war comes down here. You done it,” he says. “You and your picayune Church that's deader than Cronje's dead horses! What sort of a God have you been unloading on us, you black aas vogels? The British came, and we beat 'em,” he says, “and you sat still and prayed. The British beat us, and you sat still,” he says. “You told us to hang on, and we hung on, and our farms was burned, and you sat still—you and your God. See here,” he
