Vander Roey paced restlessly up and down between his wife's wagon and the fire. Madame Vander Roey was the only woman in the bivouac. She sat with the curtains of the wagon drawn aside, listening for the approach of expected horsemen. The wind had died away, and the sleet continued to fall noiselessly. The silence of nature was alone disturbed by Lyle's voice declaiming, and by an occasional challenge from sentinels. The two little bushboys, Lynx and Frolic, wrapped in skins and coiled up under the wagon, peered with their sharp eyes into the mist. "Here they come," said Lynx. Frolic laid his ear to the earth, satisfied himself that horses' feet were beating the ground at a distance, and announced the fact to his mistress, who called Vander Roey. He was already by her side. "Who comes there?" "Who goes there?" shouted sentinel number one; it was repeated by number two, and in an instant the rebels were on their feet. "Who comes there?" "Friends!" and about a dozen horsemen galloped in hot haste down the stony acclivity. The foremost threw himself from his horse: it was Hermanus the stutterer; the light from the fire shone upon his face; in his endeavour to speak, he made hideous grimaces. Lynx and Frolic laughed. Lyle kicked the one aside, and struck Lynx such a blow with his rifle, that the boy was stunned for a few minutes, but recovered to gibber and curse--he had learned to swear in English. The riders brought word that Sir Adrian was on his way to attack the rebels, if they were unwilling to listen to terms. The Kafirs were coaxed into quietude for a while, that Sir John Manvers might follow the Governor, if necessary, with a _corps de reserve_; it was clear that all other political questions were to be laid aside, that a heavy blow might be struck against the Boers. Vander Roey had never anticipated the sudden appearance of Sir Adrian and his troops in the heart of the country, nevertheless there seemed nothing for it now but to fight or surrender, and the cunning English traitors implicated in the rebellion, men who had nothing to lose, persuaded him, through Lyle and Brennard, that to yield at once would be to draw on themselves greater odium, and as heavy a penalty as though they resisted the law to the death. "Let it," said Lyle, addressing Vander Roey, in the presence of his wife, "be only a feint of resistance, if you will, but do not, after all your proclamations and messages to that insolent General, throw down your arms as soon as you face the troops; they will laugh, at you, despise you, and you will deserve to be beaten like a dog." Vander Roey could not help reminding Lyle, that it was he who had dictated his very last "message" to Sir John Manvers, to the effect that, "as Sir John, had not written to Vander Roey, the latter should answer him as he chose, and that his determination now was to fight, to conquer, or to die."