they send the Army Corps out three months ago?

_Brown-faced man._ It's six thousand miles--

_Thick-set man._ Why didna they send them just after the Bloemfontein
conference, before the Boers were ready? British Gov--

_Brown-faced man._ They've had three rifles a man with ammunition since
1896.

_I_ (_timidly_). Well, then, if the Army Corps had left three months
ago, wouldn't the Boers have declared war three months ago too?

_All except brown-faced man_ (_loudly_). No!

_Brown-faced man_ (_quietly_). Yes. Gentlemen, bedtime! As Brand used to
say, "Al zal rijt komen!"

_All_ (_fervently_). Al zal rijt komen! Success to the British arms!
Good night!

(All go to bed. In the night somebody on the Boer side--or
elsewhere--goes out shooting, or looses off his rifle on general
grounds; two loyalists and a refugee spring up and grasp their
revolvers. In the morning everybody wakes up unsjamboked. The
hotel-keeper takes me out to numerous points whence Pieter's farm can be
reconnoitred: there is not a single tent to be seen, and no sign of a
single Boer.)

It is a shame to smile at them. They are really very, very loyal, and