centre table supported bulky volumes bound in pressed leather with
large gilt titles. There were several men already in the room, Boers.
Those nearest the door I saw regard me with a scowl. I was a woman
from the enemy's camp. At the further end of the long room sat a large
sallow-skinned man with long grizzled hair swept abruptly up from his
forehead. His eyes, which were keen, were partly obscured by heavy
swollen lids. The nose was massive, but not handsome. The thin-lipped
mouth was large and flexible, and showed both sweetness and firmness.
A fine mouth! He wore a beard. It was President Kruger. He was filling
his pipe from a moleskin pouch, and I noticed that his broad stooping
shoulders ended in arms abnormally long. We shook hands, and he
continued to fill and light his pipe. Mr. Grobler, the pleasant-faced
young man, grandson and Secretary to the President, observing that I
was trembling with fatigue and suppressed excitement, offered me a
chair. We sat opposite each other, the President in the middle. I
spoke slowly, Mr. Grobler interpreting. This was hardly necessary,
President Kruger answering much that I said before it was interpreted.
I could understand him perfectly from my familiarity with German and
especially _Platt-Deutsch_.

I explained that I had not come to talk politics. 'No, no politics,'
interrupted the President in a thick loud voice. Nor had I come to ask
favour for my husband, as I felt assured that the honesty of his
motives would speak for themselves at the day of his trial; but I
_had_ come as a woman and daughter of a Republic to ask him to
continue the clemency which he had thus far shown, and to thank Mrs.
Kruger for the tears which she had shed when Johannesburg was in
peril.

President Kruger relaxed a little. 'That is true, she did weep.' He