"That I will tell you presently," Yorke laughed, "or I shall have to go over the same thing twice. My man Hans is my regimental servant, and has learnt to speak English very fairly, and of course knows Dutch. My Kaffir speaks Dutch and a little English, and as I speak a little Kaffir we get on very well together. He has just put up my horse in your stable. I had no time to lose when I first came here, and fastened him up behind the house, where he was not likely to be observed if any of those fellows went round there. As for getting to the Modder, it appeared to me that as a Dutch farmer, with one of his farm hands and a Kaffir labourer, I might get through without exciting much suspicion." "You might, and you might not," Mr. Chambers said. "You see, almost all the able-bodied men are away with the commandos, and you would be likely to be closely questioned as to why you were not in the field. If you were going the other way it would be more easy, for you might then say that you were coming from Cape Colony, as thousands of others have done, to join the Boers. But even in that case it would seem strange that you were going away from the fighting instead of joining a commando at once; but it would be still more strange that you should have come up to Johannesburg. What did you say at the inn? what excuse did you make for enquiring where I lived?" "I pretended that my people had all gone on commando, leaving me to look after the farm, and that I was going over to see you about some cattle that you wanted for the men still working on the mine. The man was a German, and did not, I think, see anything unlikely in my story." "Yes, but though that might do very well here, it would hardly do elsewhere. Besides, these Boers are all related or connected with each other, and, ignorant as they are on other matters, can give the name of almost every family within fifty or sixty miles of where they live, and know more or less the name of every farmer in the Transvaal. The landdrosts of all the towns will have been warned to look out for a young English officer and a young Dutchman, who will no doubt be making for the frontier, and two of you at least answer to the personal description; your dress would not go for much, as they would be sure that the man who aided your escape would also procure a disguise for you. However, we must put our heads together to-morrow and see if we can hit on some plan." After the meal was finished, Mr. Chambers asked Yorke to tell them something about himself and what he had seen of the war.