The Commandant was a Mr. Wessels—­and a very courteous gentleman his note proclaimed him.  After some conventional preliminaries, he commenced by suggesting how natural it would be if the Dutch families living in Kimberley desired to betake themselves to more congenial surroundings.  The Colonel thought it would be natural.  Mr. Wessels would take it as a favour if said families were permitted to trek.  Mr. Kekewich would gladly grant the favour; but the people concerned could not take a natural view of the matter at all; they decided to remain where they were.  Mr. Wessels next graciously proposed that all women and children, irrespective of race, should be expatriated.  The Colonel was still anxious to oblige, but the women, unfortunately, were not.  They scouted the proposition.  Its impertinence had attractions, but they declined to leave.  It was too ridiculous; living in a desert as they were, with railway communication cut off on every side.  They never heard the like!  The surrender of the entire city was the final little favour solicited by the Commandant; and lower down it was hinted that the bombardment of Kimberley would be the painful alternative to a refusal.  Here all courtesy was brushed aside, and Wessels was challenged to “take it—­if he could.”

In the evening a “special” was published which contained a few vague assurances of the satisfactory progress of the war in Natal; also some items concerning Mafeking, and the philosophic pluck of Baden-Powell.  “The British troops,” the special protested, “were rapidly arriving.”  At the redoubts the news was enthusiastically digested to the strains of “Rule Britannia,” “Tommy Atkins,” and kindred national ballads.  The troops were arriving, but had not yet reached Kimberley.  The prophets were false; the three weeks were over; but not so the siege.  One, two, aye, three weeks more of it distinctly stared us in the face.

CHAPTER IV

Week ending 11th November, 1899

The three weeks were over, and there was nothing to show that our inspirations in regard to the duration of the siege might yet prove to be substantially true.  No immediate prospect of relief was observable, and our thoughts mechanically took a gloomy turn.  How sanguine we had been, to be sure.  Hardened sinners there were, of course, to sing that fine old chorus, “I told you so!” They never did!  Nobody had ventured to tell us anything so inexplicit.  The three weeks dogma had never been questioned.  It was not, however, the detraction from our repute as prophets that saddened us, so much as the wearing off of what was novel in our beleagured state.  It was beginning to pall a little.  The day was beautiful, and notable for an absence of dust.  In the morning, the Colonel sent out a patrol to have a look around.  He also issued some stringent regulations, affecting the privileges and liberties of persons residing outside the town’s barriers.