"'Something?' we all asked.
"'Yes,' he said. 'Something … dead I It followed me up here, and I could not get away from it, spur as hard as I would. I think it is a death-call.'
"Then we were all frightened, but we could not help wanting to hear more.
"'No,' said Fanie, 'I did not see it, nor hear it even, but
I knew it was there.'
"'It was a sign,' said my mother, a very wise old woman.
'Let us all thank God.'
"So we thanked God on our knees, but I'm sure I don't know what for.
"Then Fanie told us all he knew, and that was just nothing. As he came to the kloof he was afraid of something in front of him. He said he felt like a man in grave-clothes. So he turned, and then the … whatever it was … seemed to come after him; so he galloped and galloped as hard as the horse could lay hoof to the earth, and prayed till his heart nearly burst. And then, not knowing where he was going, he jumped the wall and came among us. We were all silent when he had told us.
"Then Oom Jan spoke. He was very old, and seldom said anything.
"'You have done murder!' he said.
"'If I talk till my mouth is stopped with dust I shall never be able to tell how cold I felt about the heart when I heard that. For the little picaninny came plain before my eyes, and oh! I was all full of pity for Fanie. I liked him well enough in those days.
"He stopped with us that night. He would not go away nor be alone, so he slept with my brothers, and held their hands and prayed half the night. In the morning they took him home on one of our horses, for his own was fit to die from the night's work.
"That was the last I ever saw of Fanie. It was as though he went from us to God. He kissed me on both cheeks when he went away; he kissed us all, but me first of all, and held both my hands. I think he must have liked me too—don't you think so, Katje?" "'Yes," said Katje softly.
"He went down the road between my brothers with his head
bent like an old man's, and I watched him out of sight, and
I was very, very sorry for him. I don't think I cried, but
I may have. He was a fine tall man.
"One night my brothers came in just as I was going to bed, and one stood in the door while the other whispered to my mother. She looked up and saw me standing there.
"'Go to bed,' she said.
"'What is it?' I asked.
"'Go to bed,' said my brother.
"'No.' I said. 'Tell me, is it Fanie?'
"My brother looked at me and threw up his hand like a man who can do no more. 'Yes,' he said.
"Then I knew, as though he had shouted it out, that Fanie was dead. I cannot say how, but I knew it.
"'He is dead,' I said. 'Bring him in here.'
"So they went out and carried Fanie in with his clothes all draggled and his beard full of mud. They laid him on the table, and I saw his face. … Dear God! . . There was terror on that face, carven and set in dead flesh, that set my blood screaming in my body. Sometimes even now I wake in the night all shrinking with fear of the very memory of it.
"But there is one thing more. We went about to put everything in order and lay the poor corpse in decency, and when we started to pull off his veldschoen, as I hope to die in my bed, there was a little drop of blood still wet on the toe.
"I think God's right hand was on my head that night that I did not go mad.
"I heard the tale next morning. My brothers, coming home, found him … it … in a spruit, already quite dead. There was no horse by, but his spoor led back a mile to where the horse lay dead and stiff. When it fell he must have run on, … screaming, perhaps, … till he fell in the spruit. I would like to think peace came to him at the last; but there was no peace in the dead face."
The Vrouw Grobelaar dropped her face on to her hands, and Katje came and passed an arm of sympathy and protection around her.
THE HANDS OF THE PITIFUL WOMAN
The Vrouw Grobelaar had no opinion of Kafirs, and was forever ready to justify herself in this particular.
"Kafirs,' she said, 'are not men, whatever the German missionaries may say. I do not deny we have a duty to them, as to the beasts of the field; but as for being men, well, a baboon is as much a man as a Kafir is.
"Kafirs are made to work, and ought to work. Katje, what are you laughing about? Did not the dear God make everything for a purpose, and what is the use of a Kafir if he is not made to work? Work for themselves? Katje, you are learning nothing but rubbish at that school, and I will not have you say such things. How could the Burghers work the farms if they had not the Kafirs? Well, be silent, then.
"Oh, I know the Kafirs. I have seen hundreds of them—yes, and for the matter of that, thousands. Just beasts, they are—nothing—else. Did you hear how the Vrouw Coetzee came to die? Well, I will tell you, and you will see that we must hold the Kafirs with a hand of iron or they will destroy us.
"It was a time when Piet Coetzee was away making laws in Pretoria, and the Vrouw Coetzee, who was only married one year, was alone on the farm with her little baby. There were plenty of Kafirs to do the work; but, you see, there was no man to have an eye to them, and take a sjambok to them when they needed it. So one day the Kafirs came in from the lands and would not work any more.
"Why wouldn't they work? How should I know? Who can tell why a Kafir does anything? Perhaps a witch-doctor had come among them. Perhaps the German missionaries had been talking foolishness to them. Perhaps it began at a beer- drink with some boasting by the young men before the girls. Who can say? But however it was, they came in and sat down before the house, and just waited there.
"Vrouw Coetzee came out with her baby on her arm and spoke to them; but not one moved a finger or answered a word. They sat still where they were and watched her, and others came from the huts and sat down too, until there were close on a hundred Kafirs before the house. Vrouw Coetzee watched them come, and as she stood in the door the two Kafir girls who worked about the house pushed her aside and went and sat down too.
"Then Vrouw Coetzee, looking at the dumb black faces and white eyes, got frightened and went backwards into the house and closed the door. She put down the baby and drew the iron bar across the door inside. From there she went to the door at the back, and to all the windows, and closed and secured them as far as possible. Then she took down the old elephant-gun from the wall, and finding Piet's pouch and the bullets, she loaded it and laid it on the table. All the time the Kafirs made no sign, and from the keyhole she saw them still sitting in silence, watching the house.
"When midday came she made some food ready to eat, and then came a bang at the door.
"'What is it you want?' she cried, without opening.
"'Liquor!' cried one of the Kafirs. 'You have some brandy in the house. Give it to us, or we will come and take it and kill you at the same time.'
"'I have no brandy,' she cried, 'and when my husband comes back I will tell him to shoot you all.'
"The Kafirs laughed, and one of the house-girls called out,
'There is brandy; we have seen it.'
"Then the Kafirs all began to shout together, and banged the door with their knobkerries. 'Give us the brandy!' they shouted, and she heard a stone smash through a window against the shutters.
"The Vrouw Coetzee was a brave woman, and she hated Kafirs; but, looking at the baby, she thought it best to give them the brandy.
"'Stand away from the window,' she cried, 'and I will put the brandy outside; but if one of you