The preliminary trial dragged its undignified course through the
Courts with a fortnight’s interruption, because a youth named
Shumacher refused to give his opinions on a certain subject to the
Attorney-General, and was committed to prison for contempt.

The High Commissioner was going through génuflexions before the Boer President. Peace, peace, at any price! at the cost of broken promises, humiliating compromises, and the lives of sixty-four Reformers, if need be.

Mr. Chamberlain had caught the infection, and was salaaming across the world to Mr. Kruger, like a marionette out of a box. Thoughtful people began to wonder if he were swung by a heavy weight, which was unknown to us. Sir William Harcourt was giving the House of Commons, in England, ill-founded and flippant assurances that ’the Uitlanders desired no interference from the outside, whether British or other, but preferred rather to work out their own salvation.’ He added many unpleasant remarks about the Reformers. I said to one of his countrymen, ’Why does he, in his safety, flourish about, pinning us deeper down in the wreckage?’

’Don’t let that distress you. Everybody understands that he belongs to the other party. If he were of the party in power he would be howling for the Reformers. Remember, Mrs. Hammond, that our system of party politics seems to call for such attitudes of injustice.’ I didn’t quite understand the argument, but the gentleman spoke with conviction, and I was willing to accept his proffered comfort.

In our quiet home at Park Town we had settled down to domestic routine. The guard had gone to housekeeping in a tent under the dining-room window. They had made friends with Totsey, and then with Totsey’s master, little Jack. Although I never recognised them beyond a formal bow, in answer to their salute as we drove in and out of the grounds, I realised that they were kind-hearted men. They were Burghers belonging to the Volunteer Corps, and were quite a different grade altogether from the men who composed our guard at Pretoria. At first we had thirteen, then the number was diminished to nine. Each man was paid $5.00 a day out of my good man’s pocket, fed, and cab fare provided (to fetch and carry the relief squad from and to the town).

It was very like boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, but I had the gratification of remarking once or twice with casual superiority during conjugal conversation, that revolutions were expensive things, and that was some comfort.

My invalid’s health, which at first showed a decided change for the better, began to wane again. Massage was tried, and tonics were freely administered. Dr. Murray and I thought of Cape Town and the sea; but I must own up, it was the officer in charge who was most influential in obtaining a permit for my husband to leave the Transvaal. The bail bond was increased to a hundred thousand dollars. Fearing somebody might change his mind, I insisted on Dr. Murray’s starting at once with my husband for the Cape. Jacky was thrown in as a bonus. Parker and I were to follow on the mail train two days later.

The guard, who were by this time genuinely attached to their charge, begged him to be photographed in a group with themselves. To their great pride this was done. I missed my husband just before his departure, and Jacky, joining in my search from room to room, gave the information, ‘Papa is playing with his guard outside.’ Weak though he was, he had crawled out to the tent, with a big bottle of champagne, and when I stepped to the study window I saw, in the pale twilight, Mr. Hammond standing with the men about him. They lifted their glasses to him, and their hearty cheers shook me through.

The travellers were despatched, and, according to our plan, I followed with the maid. My dear husband was well enough to meet us in Cape Town at the depot, and Jacky was in high feather he had a tin steamboat; he was inclined to swagger; and showed a personal complacency not warranted by his appearance, for some of his clothes were put on with great care, hind-part before.

We found lodgment at Muizenburg, near Cape Town sun, wind, and primitive discomfort, this last mitigated by the never-failing kindness of the proprietor. His little children fell over one another in eager service to my invalid; they were always sure of appreciative recognition from him, and every child is sensitive to kindness.

Mr. Joseph Story Curtis, the Reformer, joined us, brought down from the Rand by his physician and sick nurse; he was suffering from partial paralysis, induced by the excitement of the revolution and preliminary trial.

Young Shumacher had come to the coast for building up, also Mr. Van Goenert, who had carried a gun on duty when Johannesburg was under arms. We were a saddened little circle at Muizenburg, and we used to watch the great ships sail out for ‘home’ with a lump in our throats.

The strong salt breeze buoyed us up to fresh hope. A new friend came to me: a woman with all a woman’s tenderness, and the simple necessities of life had a fresh meaning when supplied by you, dear Jessie Rose Innes!

Dr. Murray was obliged to leave us.

An untimely sea-bath brought back most serious symptoms to my patient, and I was the prey every afternoon to a low fever which sapped my strength. Although at first this fever bore a horrible menace, it proved a disguised blessing. For two or three hours each day I was absolutely free of care, and would lie with quick pulse and mildly intoxicated brain dreaming I was with my elder boy on the border of England. I saw him in his little Eton jacket and broad turned-down collar, his sweet young face fresh as the morning. Or I would dream of the pretty home under the hill, in far-off California. The fragrance of thick beds of violets would seem to float to me over the long waste of sea, and I could see the tall roses nodding in the white summer fog. My temples beat like the winter rain on the roof, and the light before my eyes was the library fire, picking out, in its old familiar way, the gilt lettering on the books ranged about. It was sweet to go back to all this, even down the scorching path of fever.

Our stay at Cape Town was coming to its close.

The first trial was called for April 24, and my husband insisted upon going back to meet his sentence. Drs. Thomas and Scholtz declared this most unadvisable. His heart was in such condition, any shock might prove fatal. Their reports were forwarded to the Transvaal Government, and I begged for a few days’ reprieve, cabling my urgent request to Mr. Olney in Washington, Dr. Coster at Pretoria, and our faithful friend, Mr. Robert Chapin, United States Consul at Johannesburg. Mr. Olney at once petitioned the Boer Government in our behalf. Dr. Coster answered curtly by wiring Mr. Chapin that John Hays Hammond was summoned to appear before the High Court of the Transvaal on the morning of April 24, at 10 o’clock. To me he vouchsafed no word.

Letters came from friends in Johannesburg begging my husband not to return, and cables from the United States to the same effect. The sentence was sure to be a death sentence or a term of long imprisonment.

From important sources, which for obvious reasons I cannot quote, I received private messages and letters informing of a plan on foot to lynch the leaders. The beam from which four Boers had been hung years before at Schlaagter’s Nek (Oh! that poisonous suggestion in the ‘Volksstem’) had already been brought from the Colony for this special purpose. Mr. Manion, the Consular Agent, and Mr. K.B. Brown, an American just arrived in Cape Town from the Rand, took me aside and laid the case in all its bare brutality before me. To allow my husband to return to Pretoria was for him to meet certain death. If he were not lynched by the excited Boers, he was sure to get a death sentence. Mr. Brown showed feeling as he plead with me to use a wife’s influence to save her husband’s life. My head was swimming. I could only repeat in a dull, dogged way: ’He says his honour takes him back. He is the father of my sons, and I’d rather see him dead than dishonoured.’

Somehow I got to my room, and the page-boy stumbled over me at the door some time afterward, and ran for Mrs. Cavanagh. When I felt a little recovered, I put on my hat, and, not waiting for my husband’s return from an appointment with Dr. Thomas, I drove to the office of Mr. Rose Innes. He was not in, and his clerk declared he did not know when he would be in. ’Very well, then; I’ll wait until he does come in.’

I was given a comfortable chair, and a dictionary was dusted and placed under my feet. Mr. Rose Innes at length appeared. He was greatly astonished to find me waiting for him. I began abruptly: ’Dear Mr. Innes, I am in need of a friend; my distress is so great that I can no longer distinguish right from wrong.’ I told him everything; showed him the letters which I had received, and, facing him, asked, ’What is my duty? I can appeal to my husband for my sake, to save the life of our child and perhaps dissuade him! My God, it is a temptation!’

Mr. Rose Innes sat deep in thought.

’If you think his going back is a needless throwing away of a valuable life,’ I began, with a timid hope beginning to grow in my heart ’I will chloroform him and have him taken to sea!’

Mr. Rose Innes leaned forward, and took my hand gently between his own: ’Mrs. Hammond, your husband is doing the right thing in going back; don’t try to dissuade him. If he were my own brother I would say the same’ and I accepted his decision.

For a further strong but ineffectual effort to gain a few days’ longer leave of absence for Mr. Hammond, I am indebted to this good friend. Also for many personal kindnesses which I can never forget. Miss Louisa Rhodes was a most helpful friend as well; the anxiety in common brought us very close together. She was a veritable fairy-godmother, bringing us wines and dainty food from Groote Schuur’s well-stocked larder to tempt us to eat.