Just then a door opened opposite to that which led to the verandah, and through it came His Excellency the Administrator, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, a stout man of medium height with a very clever, thoughtful face, as I have always thought, one of the greatest of African statesmen.

He did not see us, but he caught sight of you and said testily-- "Are you mad ?" To which you answered with a laugh-- "I hope not more than usual, Sir, but why ?" "Have I not told you always to let down the blinds after dark?
Yet there you sit with your head against the light, about the best target for a bullet that could be imagined." "I don't think the Boers would trouble to shoot me, Sir.

If you had been here I would have drawn the blinds and shut the shutters too," you answered, laughing again.
"Go to dress or you will be late for dinner," he said still rather sternly, and you went.

But when you had gone and after we had been announced to him, he smiled and added something which I will not repeat to you even now.

I think it was about what you did on the Annexation day of which the story had come to him.
I mention this incident because whenever I think of Shepstone, whom I had known off and on for years in the way that a hunter knows a prominent Government official, it always recurs to my mind, embodying as it does his caution and appreciation of danger derived from long experience of the country, and the sternness he sometimes affected which could never conceal his love towards his friends.