With Buller in Natal | Page 5

remaining you must leave behind to take its
chance. You will be able to take no luggage whatever with you. We
know how terribly the trains have been packed for the past fortnight,
and a week ago almost all the carriages were commandeered for the use
of the troops going south.
"You must take with you a basket of provisions, sufficient, if necessary,
for two or three days for you both. There is no saying how long you
may be on your way to the frontier; once beyond that you will, of
course, be able to obtain anything you want. But you need expect no
civility or courtesy from the Boers, who, indeed, would feel a malicious
pleasure in shunting you off into a siding, and letting you wait there for
any number of hours. You must mind, Chris, above all things, to keep
your temper, whatever may happen. You know how our people have
been insulted, and actually maltreated in scores of cases, and in their
present state of excitement the Boers would be only too glad to find an
excuse for acts of violence. I was speaking to you about it three days
ago, and I cannot impress it too strongly upon you. I have already given
you permission to join one or other of the corps that are being raised in
Natal, and if anything unpleasant occurs on the road, you must bottle

up your feelings and wait till you get a rifle in your hand and stand on
equal terms with them."
"I promise that, father. I think, after what we have had to put up with
here, during the past two or three months especially, I can bear
anything for these last few days."
"Yes, Chris; but it will be more trying now that you have your mother
under your charge. It is for her sake as well as your own that I impress
this so strongly upon you. Now, will you go down at once to the
railway- station and enquire about the trains? I shall go myself to the
manager and see whether I can get him to make any special
arrangement in your mother's favour, though I have no great hopes of
that; for though I know him well, he is, like all these Dutchmen in
office, an uncivilized brute puffed up with his own importance."
Chris started at once, and returned an hour later with a very
discouraging report. The station was crowded with people. No regular
trains were running, but while he was there a large number of cattle-
trucks had been run up to the platform, and in these as many of the
fugitives as could be packed in were stowed away. As soon as this was
done the train had started, but not half the number collected on the
platform had found room in it. His father had left a few minutes after
him, and presently returned.
"From what I can hear," he said, "there is no chance whatever of your
being able to get any accommodation, but must take your chance with
the others. Viljoen told me that except the waggons there was not a
carriage of any sort or class left here, and that there was no saying at all
when any would return; but that even if they did, they would be taken
for the use of the troops going south. All he could say was that if, when
I came down to the station with you, he is there, he will see that you go
by the first waggons that leave."
"That is something at least," Mrs. King said quietly. "I certainly do not
wish to ask for any favour from these people, and do not want to be
better off than others. I have no doubt that it will be an unpleasant time,
but after all it will be nothing to what great numbers of people will

have to suffer during the war."
"That is so, Amy. And now I think that the sooner the start is made the
better. The rush to get away will increase every hour, and we shall have
the miners coming in in hundreds. Many of the mines will be shut
down at once, though some of them will, like ours, continue operations
as long as they are allowed to."
"Make your basket, or bag, or whatever you take your provisions in, as
small as possible, mother. I saw lots of baggage left behind on the
platform. You see, there are no seats to stow things under. I should say
that a flat box which you can sit on would be the best thing. And you
will want your warmest cloak and a thick rug for night."
"I have a box that will do very well, Chris. Fortunately we have