Hansie jumped out and was going up to her brother, when one of the soldiers said to her: "You may not speak to the prisoner." "But I may kiss him!" Hansie retorted, throwing her arms round his neck and giving him a kiss which could be heard all over the Fort. There was a general laugh, and Mrs. van Warmelo promptly followed suit. Dietlof was called into the Provost-Marshal's office and cross-questioned, while his mother and sister waited outside impatiently. What a lengthy examination! Quarter of an hour, half an hour passed, then he appeared with a soldier, who said curtly: "You may talk to the prisoner for half an hour _in English_!" I forget how many minutes of the precious thirty were lost in groping desperately for some topic of conversation suitable to the occasion, and safe! but when at last they found their tongues, they talked so fast that it is doubtful whether the Tommies understood anything. Hansie longed to ask her brother whether the Provost-Marshal knew anything of their escapade the night before, but dared not, hoping that the men concerned were under the impression that this was their first interview with the prisoner. He told them some of his war experiences and the fights he had been in, for the Provost-Marshal had given him permission to speak of his personal experiences of the war. One incident Hansie remembered particularly, because of a curious coincidence connected with it. In describing the battle of Moselikatsnek, under General de la Rey, in which he and Fritz had taken an active part, he told his mother and sister of a young English officer, Lieutenant Pilkington, whom he had found lying alone in a pool of blood among the rocks and shrubs. Dietlof tended him, giving him brandy from a flask which he always carried with him for such purposes, and laying grass under him on the hard rocks. The poor man was shockingly wounded, and it was evident that his case was hopeless. He held Dietlof's hand, imploring him not to leave him, but Dietlof was the forerunner of the seven burghers who were forcing their way wedgelike through the English ranks in order to compel the enemy to surrender by attacking them from behind. He considered it his duty to go forward, but assured the dying man that the comrades who were following in his wake could speak English and would care for him. The donga was strewn with dead and dying English. In the meantime the younger brother Fritz was tending a soldier with a terrible wound in the head. The seven men were now advancing steadily from one ridge to the other, but Dietlof had reached a point on which the burghers from behind were bombarding with their cannon, and as the rocks flew into the air he found it impossible to proceed. He therefore returned, and the captain sent a dispatch-bearer down with orders that the cannon-firing should cease.