During these months negotiations between him and certain leaders of the Bond party went on almost uninterruptedly.

These were either conducted openly by people like Mr.David de Waal, or else through other channels when not entrusted to persons whom it would be relatively easy later on to disavow.

Once or twice these negotiations seemed to take a favourable turn at several points, but always at the last minute Rhodes withdrew under some pretext or other.

What he would have liked would have been to have, as it were, the Dutch party, the Bond, the English Colonists, the South African League, President Kruger, and the High Commissioner, all rolled into one, fall at his feet and implore him to save South Africa.

When he perceived that all these believed that there existed a possibility for matters to be settled without his intervention, he hated every man of them with a hatred such as only very absolute natures can feel.