"'Why, only to-day he sends back his love by Johanna Van der Merwe, that
goes to their doctor for her sick baby's eyes. He sends his love, that
Mankeltow, and he tells her tell me he has a little garden of roses all
ready for me in the Dutch Indies--Umballa. He is very funny, my Captain
Mankeltow.'

"The Dutch and the English ought to fraternise, Sir. They've the same
notions of humour, to my thinking.'

"'When he gets well,' says Van Zyl, 'you look out, Mr. Americaan. He comes
back to his guns next Tuesday. Then they shoot better.'

"I wasn't so well acquainted with the Royal British Artillery as old man
Van Zyl. I knew this Captain Mankeltow by sight, of course, and,
considering what sort of a man with the hoe he was, I thought he'd done
right well against my Zigler. But nothing epoch-making.

"Next morning at the usual hour I waited on the General, and old Van Zyl
come along with some of the boys. Van Zyl didn't hang round the Zigler
much as a rule, but this was his luck that day.

"He was peeking through his glasses at the camp, and I was helping pepper,
the General's sow-belly--just as usual--when he turns to me quick and
says, 'Almighty! How all these Englishmen are liars! You cannot trust
one,' he says. 'Captain Mankeltow tells our Johanna he comes not back till
Tuesday, and to-day is Friday, and there he is! Almighty! The English are
all Chamberlains!'

"If the old man hadn't stopped to make political speeches he'd have had
his supper in laager that night, I guess. I was busy attending to Tom Reed