the Peruvian set loose. But Oom Johannes cursed at
them and smacked Jacobus on the back.

"'My daughter is lost, and evil tongues are active about
her,' he roared. 'I want her back, and I don't care how she
comes. Come to supper, Jacobus; and afterwards you shall
take your smouser into a hut and persuade him.'

"It was not an easy thing to make the Peruvian understand
what was wanted of him. But by and by, when he had been
argued with in Dutch and Kafir, and shown a skull that was
found in a kloof, and the dol oss, and a picture in the
Bible of the Witch of Endor, he suddenly grasped the idea,
and grinned. Piet spat on the ground as the white teeth
gleamed through the greasy black beard.

"'Yes, perhaps I can do that,' said the Peruvian, in the
Taal. 'Perhaps, but one cannot be sure. You will pay, eh?'

"Jacobus wanted to threaten, but Oom Johannes would not
have it.

"'Find my girl,' he said, 'and you shall be paid. Fifty
pounds for any news of her, more if she is alive and well.'

"But the smouser explained that he could only find her if
she were dead.

"'I can get her to speak, perhaps,' he said. 'More? No!'

"At last Jacobus and Piet took him into one of the big huts
and gave him the little lamp that he demanded. He set it in
the middle of the floor, and when they pulled to the door
behind them the big domed hut was still almost dark, save
for the ring of quiet light in the centre that flickered a
little.

"'I wish he could do this kind of thing when I'm not
there,' grumbled Jacobus, who hated creepy things.

"'Hush! be quiet!' commanded the Peruvian, and the two
young men sat down, very close together, with their backs
to the door.

"'The first thing that the Peruvian did was to take off all
his clothes, and then he came into the dim circle of light
mother-naked. He was a little man at best, but Piet said
afterwards the muscles stood out under his swarthy skin in
knots and ridges. And there he stood, facing them across
the lamp, with his arms stretched forwards and his hands
just fluttering loosely. Nothing more. His eyes were
upturned and his face lifted, so that a streak of shadow
rose across it, and the black beard against his neck rose
and fell with his breathing. But for the gentle flutter of
his hands and the heave of his chest he was still as stone--
so still that for those who watched him all relation to
human kind seemed to leave him, and he was a being alone in
a twilight world of his