Also, in the biggest chair at the other end of the room, a moderate-sized slop-basin full of coffee by her side, sat Tanta Coetzee, still actively employed in doing absolutely nothing.

There, too, were the showily dressed maidens, there was the sardonic lover of one of them, and all the posse of young men with rifles.

The _sit-kammer_ and its characteristics were quite unchanged, and on entering it John felt inclined to rub his eyes and wonder whether the events of the last few months had been nothing but a dream.
The only thing that had changed was his welcome.

Evidently he was not expected to shake hands all round on the present occasion.

Fallen indeed would that Boer have been considered who, within a few days of Majuba, offered to shake hands with a wretched English _rooibaatje_, picked up like a lame buck on the veldt.