What was he to do? His mother was surrounded by nurses, and the house was filled with relatives and friends. As Captain of the Secret Service, his name was too well known. He could not show himself at such a time, when he had every reason to believe that the enemy was watching him with extra vigilance. The next news, while he was still in hopeless deliberation, was that his mother had passed away. It needs a strong man's most powerful self-control to "act firmly, calmly, prudently," at such a time, and yet even then he restrained the impulse to go to her. Of what avail to kiss that icy brow? Next day, from his hiding-place behind the window curtain, he watched his mother's funeral procession, passing by. His comrade, Johannes Coetzee, nicknamed Baden-Powell, the man who had left the town with him on his second expedition, once had a miraculous escape from death. He was leaving for commando with a bag containing clothes, a number of Mauser cartridges which the Committee in town had collected by degrees, when he was taken prisoner by the enemy just as he was nearing the wire enclosure. He was immediately taken to the Commandant, who examined the bundle containing the contraband articles, and ordered him to be escorted to another Department. Of his guilt, proof positive had been found, but this fact was not conveyed to the armed soldier who was about to escort him to his doom. On their way, he knew not where, Coetzee pleaded with the guard to release him. "I have been taken under false pretences," he said. "I am innocent, an employee at the Lunatic Asylum. If you will escort me over the railway line, I will pay you." "How much money have you?" the man asked. Coetzee took some silver from his pocket, counted it and said: "I have only thirteen shillings." "That will do," his guard replied, and conducted him in safety to the asylum, in the vicinity of which he found his tethered horse, still waiting for his return, the soldier himself holding his horse and assisting him to mount with the bag containing the ammunition. Disregard for wise counsel from older men, head-strong self-will, and a sheer indifference to death and danger were the causes of much disaster in those days. On the other hand, recklessness and the very disregard for death mentioned above brought more than one man safely through the fierce fires of adversity, as we shall see in the tragic and stirring events to be recorded in this and the next chapter. One there was amongst the spies, noted for his extraordinary bravery, a hero of the rarest type, of whom we can only speak with bated breath and thrilling hearts. In the brief record of his heroic life--and still more heroic death--we have a rich inheritance. Adolph Krause was his name, a man still young, a married man. He was a German by birth, but a full burgher of the State for which he sacrificed his noble life.