planned the thing with due regard for every chance. Johannesburg--"

"Johannesburg isn't ready, Stafford. I know. That Jameson and the Rand
should coincide was the only chance. And they'll not coincide now. It
might have been--it was to have been--a revolution at Johannesburg,
with Dr. Jim to step in at the right minute. It's only a filibustering
business now, and Oom Paul will catch the filibuster, as sure as
guns. 'Gad, it makes me sick!"

"Europe will like it--much," remarked Ian Stafford, cynically,
offering Byng a lighted match.

Byng grumbled out an oath, then fixed his clear, strong look on
Stafford. "It's almost enough to make Germany and France forget 1870
and fall into each other's arms," he answered. "But that's your
business, you Foreign Office people's business. It's the fellows out
there, friends of mine, so many of them, I'm thinking of. It's the
British kids that can't be taught in their mother-tongue, and the men
who pay all the taxes and can't become citizens. It's the justice you
can only buy; it's the foot of Kruger on the necks of the subjects of
his suzerain; it's eating dirt as Englishmen have never had to eat it
anywhere in the range of the Seven Seas. And when they catch Dr. Jim,
it'll be ten times worse. Yes, it'll be at Doornkop, unless-- But, no,
they'll track him, trap him, get him now. Johannesburg wasn't
ready. Only yesterday I had a cable that--" he stopped short
. . . "but they weren't ready. They hadn't guns enough, or something;
and Englishmen aren't good conspirators, not by a damned sight! Now
it'll be the old Majuba game all over again. You'll see."

"It certainly will set things back. Your last state will be worse than