Strange that these reformers (?) should have run their noses against a wall, without first making sure that the wall would give way without hurting their precious noses. But now, when the mischief was done, they seemed to realise _their_ danger, and began to stop and consider. Now, when Jameson was fighting for life or death in their cause. Now, when thousands of poor women and children had fled from the scene in destitution and want. Now, when the veld along the Vaal and beyond was covered with these destitute, unprotected, unsheltered, barely-clothed and starving women and children, and were depending for daily bread on the very Boers whom the Reform Committee were trying to destroy. Now, when many a home was in mourning and woe for loved ones lost at that terrible railway accident at Glencoe, when a train, loaded with fugitives from the Rand, was wrecked, causing the death of many a mother, a father, a child, or some other loved one, while many a one lived to bear some terrible mark of the accident for life. Now, when the whole country was in commotion and disorder by their action. Now, when the powers of Europe were glaring in distrust at each other, ready to spring at each other’s throat, and cause endless war and bloodshed. Now, when (worst of all for South Africa) a bitter and insatiable race hatred has been started anew in the whole of South Africa. Now only, I say, the few scheming, plotting and unscrupulous persons who had caused all this, began to bethink themselves, and now only, because they began to see that their own precious hides were beginning to be in danger, and followed in the footsteps of their leader, C. Leonard. They may plead that they stopped to avoid further bloodshed; but why have they started shedding blood at all? Why first invite a foreign force to invade the country on their behalf, and then desert their accomplices? No, all excuse is vain, they knew exactly what they were doing when they began their guilty plots to rob a nation of freedom and country; and they knew (unless they were idiots, and fit inmates for the lunatic asylum) what to expect. The only sensible thing the Reform Committee ever did was, when Jameson was a prisoner and the whole mess was spoiled, to accept defeat and lay down their arms. (I am not referring to the time when they concluded the armistice, while Jameson’s fate was undecided, but the following week, when they laid down their arms, as we shall see farther on). But the great guilt of the Reform Committee lay in their ever having taken up arms, and in ever having plotted to light the torch of civil war, with no other object than to throw the South African Republic into the arms of Rhodes. As to the professed object of the revolution and the demands contained in the manifesto, we shall take occasion a little farther on to show how much--or how little--cause there was for the taking up of arms. CHAPTER XVIII PRETORIA DURING THE CRISIS