"I'll report that younker as a dangerous character. Keep an eye on him as you go along," cried the chief to the Groblaars, as he rode off with his men. Stephanus took no part in this conversation, while his cousin only chuckled good-naturedly, as if it were a good joke. He was an easy-going fellow, and did not let anything trouble him much beyond the keeping of the wine cool and the oxen in good condition. It was about four o'clock the third afternoon after this that they lumbered into Johannesburg amidst a cloud of dust, and unharnessed for the last time together. Our heroes said good-bye with all friendliness to the vine-grower's son; and with a cold word or two to the still sullen Stephanus, they went off together to the house of Clarence Raybold, senior. Taking it all through, their journey up-country had been an educating and a pleasant one. They had passed through a prosperous land, full of variety and strangeness. They had met all sorts of people, both white and coloured, and every description of pastures. They were brown with the fierce sun and covered with the white dust, and totally changed, outwardly and inwardly, from the schoolboys who left England such a little time ago. They had killed puff adders and other deadly snakes on their way, and had got over their shuddering horror for those obnoxious reptiles. They had also seen the best side of the Boer character, and had commenced to experience the other side--the Boer in power, with their countrymen under his feet. It was a new and a disagreeable experience to those proud young Britons to find their countrymen in the condition of serfs and door-mats, with clumsy and ignorant clowns tramping over them ruthlessly. As they walked through the streets of Johannesburg, and saw at every step evidences of the misrule of that hypocritical and false tyrant, Kruger, they felt a natural and deep disgust towards the Englishmen who had permitted such a condition of things to exist. They met gangs of Boers swaggering about fully armed, and jeering at the unarmed citizens. They saw Britons, or what looked like their countrymen, sneaking about and meekly eating the leek. Their generous young blood boiled within them as they looked up at the guns which the hoary tyrant of the Transvaal had planted on the fort to overawe the city. They felt as if they were inside the walls of a big prison, and every instinct within them moved towards rebellion. From the moment they caught sight of that fort, with the guns dominating the streets, they were filled with a hatred towards the Boers and a quenchless desire for slaughter. "I wonder what our people out here are made of to stand this sort of thing?" murmured Ned, as he looked at his chums' blazing eyes. "Surely some of them have enough of the old blood left to risk it for the sake of liberty." "I'll not be able to stand it long," answered Clarence, with a deep-drawn breath. "Nor can I," said Fred.