them
raging at each other as she lay trembling. Then came shrieks, and the dull
sound of the sjambok cutting soft human flesh. In the morning the woman
had a black eye; there were livid weals on her tear-blurred face. She
packed her boxes, snivelling. She was going back along up to Johannesburg
by the next thither-bound transport-waggon-train that should halt at the
hotel--thrown off like an old shoe after all these years. And she was not
young enough for the old life, what with hard work and hard usage and
worry, and she knew to whom she owed her dismissal....

Ay, and if she could have throttled or poisoned the little sly devil she
would have done it! Only--there would have been Bough to reckon with
afterwards. For of God she made a jest, and the devil was an old friend of
hers, but she was horribly afraid of the man with the brown bushy whiskers
and the light, steely eyes. Yet she threw herself upon him to kiss him,
blubbering freely, when at the week's end the Johannesburg
transport-rider's waggons returning from the district town not yet linked
up to the north by the railway came in sight.

Bough poured her out a big glass of liquor, his universal panacea, and
another for the transport-rider, with many a jovial word. He would be
running up to Johannesburg before she had well shaken down after the
journey. Then they would have a rare old time, going round the bars and
doing the shows. Though, perhaps if she had got fixed up with a new
friend, some flash young fellow with pots of money, she would not be
wanting old faces around?

Then he turned aside to pay the transport-rider, and the exile dabbed her
swollen face with a rouge-stained, lace-edged handkerchief, and went out
to get into the waggon.

The girl stood by the stoep, staring, puzzled, overwhelmed, afraid. A
piece of her world was breaking off. As long as she could remember
anything she had known this woman. She had never received any kindness
from her; of late she had been malignant in her hate, but--she wished she
was not going. Instinctively she had felt that her presence was some
slight protection. Keeping close in the shadow of this creature's frowzy
skirts, she had not so feared and dreaded those light eyes of Bough's, and
the padding, following footsteps had kept aloof. As the woman passed her
now, a rage of unspeakable, agonising fear rose in her bosom. She cried
out to her, and clutched at her shabby gay mantle.

The woman snatched the garment