I sent a despatch to him and Judge Hertzog asking them to come and see me, with a view to bringing the burghers under arms again, in the southern and south-western districts of the State.
This letter was taken by Commandant Michal Prinsloo and some despatch riders to General Fourie.

The night that he crossed the line a train was passing, and he wrecked the railway both in front of it and behind it.
The train could thus neither advance nor retreat, and it fell into the hands of Commandant Prinsloo, who, after having taken what he wanted, burnt it.
With regard to myself, I remained in the neighbourhood of Commandant Nel's farm.
Here I had the most wonderful of all the escapes that God allowed me in the whole course of the war.
On the third evening at sunset, a Hottentot came to me.

He said that his "baas," whose family lived about twelve miles from the farm of Commandant Nel, had laid down their arms, and that he could not remain in the service of the wife of such a bad "baas." He asked me if he could not become one of my "achterrijders." As he was still speaking to me, Landdrost Bosman from Bothaville, came to pay me a visit.
"Good," I said to the Hottentot, "I shall see you about this again." For I wished to cross-question him.

I then went into the house with the Landdrost, and spent a good deal of time in writing with him.

Late in the evening he went back to Bothaville and I to bed exactly at eleven o'clock.
I had scarcely laid down when the Hottentot came back to my thoughts, and I began to grow uneasy.