"I am very much obliged to you for your kindness, for you have treated me as well as our men would have treated you if you had fallen into their hands." A minute later he was riding along the road with two of the Boers on each side of him. The distance was some five-and-twenty miles, and, sometimes walking, sometimes cantering, they reached the town between six and seven. Yorke had chatted cheerfully to one of his guards, who spoke English, feeling apparently but little anxiety as to his position. "Where do you suppose they will send me?" he asked. "The orders are to send all prisoners to Pretoria; but most likely, in the first place, they will send you to Bloemfontein, and from there you can be taken up by rail. All the prisoners taken in Natal are sent up that way--not, of course, through Bloemfontein, but by the line through Standerton. I don't suppose you will be there very long, for, of course, as soon as we have driven all your soldiers out of the country, we shall send the prisoners after them." "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched," Yorke laughed. "The war has been going on two months, and you have not done much towards it yet." "No," one of the guard admitted, "but we have killed thousands and thousands of your troops in Natal, and we shall finish with those on the Modder directly they advance again. All our people in Cape Colony are only waiting for orders, when they will rise to a man. We are expecting every day to hear that Ladysmith has fallen. Then Joubert will drive your people to take to their ships at Durban. We shall leave enough men here to starve your garrison, and shall then march to Cape Town with the Transvaalers. We don't expect any fighting on the way, because our people will have risen and captured the place long before we arrive there." "It all sounds easy enough, doesn't it? But at present you see, you have not taken Ladysmith; you have not defeated Buller's army; you have not starved Kimberley; you have not even taken Mafeking; and the Dutch in Cape Colony have not risen. When all these things have happened, you may find it clear sailing. But you must remember that, although you were all prepared for war, Britain was not. At present we have not more than fifty thousand men here, and you have found it difficult to deal with them. She could send, and will send, if necessary, five hundred thousand more." "That would be a big lot," the Boer said doubtfully; "but with the Dutch in Cape Colony we should not be afraid of them."