"I am not," he answered. "The Captain is a man of vast experience. This was not his first visit to Pretoria. Venter has been five times in Pretoria and nine times in Johannesburg under the same conditions. Brenckmann, too, can speak of unique experiences--but I can bet you anything that _he_ will never come in again." "Why not?" "Oh, he had an awful time here. There are khakis and handsuppers living all round his house, to some of whom he is well known by sight. It was found necessary to conceal him, and for three days and two nights the poor boy was stowed away in a tiny attic, just under the corrugated-iron roof and hardly large enough to hold a man. There he lay in the suffocating heat of those endless days, only coming out at night for a few hours like the bats and owls. No, he won't trouble us again!" Before she left she told him what had been arranged about a sign on the gatepost and asked van der Westhuizen to warn her friends of the "inner circle" that Harmony was no longer a safe place to visit, begging them to keep this information to themselves, "because," she added, "the enemy must not know that we know." Later on she hoped to see him again when the time approached for Naude to come again, but she advised him not to visit Harmony unnecessarily, as much would depend on him in the event of a raid on Harmony and the transportation of its inhabitants to other regions. I can only say in conclusion of this chapter that the friends of the "inner circle," Mrs. Malan, Mrs. Joubert, Mrs. Armstrong, Mrs. Honey, and a few others, bravely scorned the idea of avoiding Harmony. "Why should we not come?" Mrs. Armstrong asked, with her cheerful, ever-ready laugh; "don't other people come here still?" "Oh yes, but----" "Then why not we? The more the better, say I! Surely we cannot _all_ be arrested and sent away!" CHAPTER XXXVIII THE RAID ON HARMONY It was the peacefullest, decentest raid I ever heard of, and it would be difficult to think of anything with a termination more tame and commonplace. But we have not got there yet. The events which led up to it must be got over first as briefly as possible, and then we go on to what was called a formal declaration of war between the inmates of the Military Camp and the two principal actors at Harmony. After the van Warmelos had discovered on December 20th, through the enemy's rank stupidity, that they had been found out, a regular game of hide-and-seek began to be played in and around their beautiful garden.