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and whine for it, beg for it, pray with clasped hands for it, and you shall take as much as you can grasp. Do that, d'you hear? I want to see you on your knees for once and groveling for a handful of sovereigns. Go on; get down with you!' "Barend gave a short laugh. It was amusing of Emmanuel, he thought, to promise this on a condition so impossible. The woman spun on her heel and faced him sharply with bent brows and a heaving bosom. "'Kneel, my beauty,' said Emmanuel again mockingly, but watching the woman as she stared at Barend. There was a kind of wonder on her dark cruel face as she studied the big Boer's serene countenance and masterful poise of head, and noted there the mild amusement which is the scorn of a good man. "'Kneel now, and plead for it,' said Emmanuel again; and of a sudden a doubt came over Barend. There was a distress plain to see, something remorseful and newly born surging in this harlot; there was an appeal, fiercely shameful, in the hard eyes bent on his. "Of a sudden she wheeled round and spat an awful curse at the sick man. 'Keep your damned money!' she went on, while the thick veins in her neck grew to dark ridges. 'D'you think you can buy everything? You've sold your life and your innocence for filth--d'you suppose it's all to buy? You an' me's in the same box, my boy--bad 'ems both, but you don't make a dog of me.' "She turned to Barend. 'Let me pass, you big hulking--' she hesitated, looking at him. "'Oh, you poor innocent,' she cried, with a laugh, and ran past him and out at the door. "Emmanuel called after her, and bade her come back and take what she would, but her heels rattled on the stairway and she was gone. "'Is that the strange woman?' asked Peter, quoting from the Proverbs. "Emmanuel laughed. 'Strange as the devil,' he said, with his voice running weak. 'You see souls in this town, cousins--not bodies only, as on the farm. Souls that blush and bleed, I tell you. But go to the head of the stairway, Barend, and shout as loud as you can for Jim. Just shout "Jim"!' "Barend went and roared the name half a dozen times. There came at last a man with a dirty coat buttoned to the neck, grimy, ill-shod and white-eyed, and to him Emmanuel, speaking from behind the heap of sovereigns, to which the man's evil pale eyes strayed every moment, gave orders. "'Tell the boys,' he said, 'that there's a spree here tonight. Get the whole gang, Jim, and particularly
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