thereby relieving the pressure below, and enabling all the women to sit
down. Others ranged themselves along the sides, sitting on the rail, and
so minimizing the space they occupied. But even with all this, the women
were packed inconveniently together. All, however, were so much pleased
at their good fortune in having got away that there was no complaining
or grumbling. That the journey would be a long one, all knew; but at
least they had started, and would soon be a free people in a free
country. Chris and his friends had been among the first to climb up on
to the roof, and they sat down in a group at one end of it.

"It is going to be pretty cold here to-night, and desperately hot to-
morrow," Chris said; "but we can put up with that. I would stand it for
a month rather than stop any longer among these brutes." There was a
general murmur of agreement.

"Thank heavens," one of them said, "the next time we meet them will be
with arms in our hands. We have a long score to pay off, and we shall, I
expect, have plenty of chances. The Boers are boasting that they will
soon drive the last Englishman out of South Africa, and seem to regard
it as a sort of general picnic. They will find out their mistake before
they have done."

"Still, we must not think that it is going to be a picnic our way,"
Chris said. "They have quite made up their minds that every Boer in Cape
Colony and Natal will join them at once. If they do, it will be a very
long business to put them down, though I have no doubt it will all come
right in the end. Do you know anything about the others?"

"I know that Peters and Carmichael and Brown went off with their people
last night, but I don't know about the others."