Chris repeated this conversation to his comrades. "I think," he said, "that if there is no chance of doing anything for another two or three months, we might as well break up. I have no doubt a good many of the Colonials will re-enlist. Numbers of them are working men, either from Johannesburg or belonging to Natal; they would find it very difficult to get work here, and the five shillings a day pay is therefore of the greatest importance to them. But it is different with us. We don't draw pay, we simply agreed to band ourselves together to have an opportunity of paying out the Boers for their treatment of us. At the time we agreed to that, we had no idea that they would invade Natal. Of course that was an additional inducement to us to fight. As loyalists, and capable of bearing arms, it would have been our duty, even if we had no personal feeling in the matter, to enlist to help to clear the country of the enemy who invaded it. Now that Ladysmith is rescued and there are certainly enough troops in South Africa to finish the business up, I do not see that it is our duty to continue our service. Anyhow, I have pretty well made up my mind to resign and go round to Cape Town. There I am almost sure to find my mother, and perhaps my father, for we know that they have expelled almost all the English remaining about the mines, and he may have been among them." "I agree with you heartily," Sankey said. "At any rate, I should vote for our breaking up for the present. It will be beastly for us to have to stop here doing nothing for another month or two, and then perhaps, when Buller moves forward to join Roberts, to be told that the colonial force will no longer be required." Twelve of the others expressed similar opinions. The friends of the eight who did not do so had returned to England. Carmichael was one of these. "Well," he said after a pause, "I do not say that you are not quite right, but I have no one to go to here. My people went home as soon as they reached Durban. If I were to join them I might hear when I landed that the war was just over, and that they had either started to come back again, or were on the point of doing so. I was born out here, and have never seen any of my relations in Scotland. Though I should like very much to spend a few months in the old country, it would not be worth while going home for so short a time; for I am sure my father will hurry back to his work at the mines as soon as Johannesburg is taken by us. I fancy all those who have not spoken are in about the same situation that I am."