E-text prepared by Michael Ciesielski, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) A WOMAN'S PART IN A REVOLUTION by MRS. JOHN HAYS HAMMOND Longmans, Green, and Co. 39 Paternoster Row London New York and Bombay 1897 PREFACE To the American Public, whose sympathy was my chief support through days of bitter trial, this book is gratefully dedicated. My personal experience forms the subject of my story. The causes of the Revolt in Johannesburg, and the ensuing political questions, are but lightly touched upon, in deference to the silence enforced upon my husband as one of the terms of his liberation by the Boer Government. NATALIE HAMMOND. BOUGHTON: BICKLEY, KENT. February, 1897. A WOMAN'S PART IN A REVOLUTION I hope I may be able to tell the truth always, and to see it aright according to the eyes which God Almighty gives me.--THACKERAY. I. Totsey the terrier lay blinking in the hot African sun, while Cecilia Rhodes, the house kitten, languished in a cigar box wrapped about with twine to represent bars of iron. Above her meek face was a large label marked 'African Lion.' Her captor, my young son Jack, was out again among the flower-beds in quest of other big game, armed with my riding-crop. The canvas awnings flapped gently in the cool breeze. Every now and then a fan-like arm of one of the large Madeira chairs would catch the impetus and go speeding down the wide red-tiled verandah. I looked up from the little garment which I was making, upon this quiet picture. It was the last restful moment I was to know for many long months--such months of suffering and agonised apprehension as God in His mercy sends to few women.