A Woman's Part in a Revolution by Natalie Harris Hammond
page 31 of 192 (16%)
page 31 of 192 (16%)
|
more--they were paralysed. I threw myself across the foot of my little
boy's bed, and lay like a dead woman until the morning broke.... Many days afterward I heard further details of the arrest. Some of the incidences were amusing, as was the polite borrowing and making use of Mr. King's carriage--he being one of the Reformers--for conveyance of the prisoners to the gaol. At the Rand Club there was so large a collection of Reformers, that the carriages, even over-crowded, could not carry them all. Lieuts. de Korte and Pietersen, the officers in charge, said in the most friendly manner, 'Very well, gentlemen, some of you must wait until we can come back for you.' And they _did_ wait. Colonel Rhodes was taken from his own home; roused from his bed, he stood brushing his hair with martial precision, and expressing to the officer his regret at putting him to the trouble of waiting while he dressed, Mr. Seymour Fort meanwhile packing his valise. 'Fort, old man, put in some books,' said the Colonel, who is a great reader; 'all the books you can find;' and Mr. Fort threw in book after book--big ones and little ones; and for this lavish provision the poor Colonel paid dearly some hours later, in company with several husbands, whose wives in excess of tenderness had provided them with every known toilette luxury filled into silver-topped cut crystal bottles. The sight of these afflicted men carrying their heavy burdens from the station to the prison at Pretoria was both amusing and dramatic. At times their speech reached the epic. The sad side was poor Sam Jameson, crippled and broken with rheumatism--a seriously ill man--accompanied to the very prison gates by his ever-faithful wife; and the second lot of Reformers, sent to Pretoria the following morning, met with an experience which some of them have never since been able to speak of without turning white. By |
|