Just at dawn, when they had been besieging the house for some hours, shouting, banging off their guns, and trying to fire the roof by means of assegais with tufts of blazing grass tied on to them, Jan, Ralph, and about twenty of our people crept down under cover of the orchard wall and sallied out upon them.
Almighty! how those men fought, especially Jan and Ralph.

It was a pleasure to see them, for I watched the whole thing from the _stoep_, though I admit that I was anxious, since it was evident that neither of them seemed to care whether he lived or died.

However, as it turned out, it was not they who died, but the Kaffirs, who went off with some few cattle and afterwards left us in peace.
And now comes the strange part of the affair, though I scarcely like to tell it, lest after all these years it should not be believed.

Someone connected with the London Missionary Society reported us to the Government at the Cape for shooting poor, innocent black men, and it was threatened that Jan and Ralph would be put upon their trial for murder by the British Government.

Indeed, I believe that this would have been done had not we and others of our neighbourhood let it be clearly known that before they were dragged to the common gaol there would be killing not only of black but of white men.
Our case was only one of many, since in those times there was no security for us Boers--we were robbed, we were slandered, we were deserted.