I must go," remarked Byng at last, though there was a strange sinking of the heart as he said it.

Even yet the perfume of Jasmine's cloak stole to his senses to intoxicate them.

But it was his duty to offer to go; and he felt that he could do good by going, and that he was needed at Johannesburg.

He, more than all of them, had been in open conflict with Oom Paul in the the past, had fought him the most vigorously, and yet for him the old veldschoen Boer had some regard and much respect, in so far as he could respect a Rooinek at all.
"I will go," Byng repeated, and looked round the table at haggard faces, at ashen faces, at the faces of men who had smoked to quiet their nerves, or drunk hard all night to keep up their courage.

How many times they had done the same in olden days, when the millions were not yet arrived, and their only luxury was companionship and champagne--or something less expensive.
As Byng spoke, Krool entered the room with a great coffee-pot and a dozen small white bowls.