harp tangents to all the habits of their existence and their
character. In a real sense he had been very primitive, very objective
in all he thought and said and did. With imagination, and a sensitive
organization out of keeping with his immense physique, it was still
only a visualizing sense which he had, only a thing that belongs to
races such as those of which Krool had come.

A few days of continuous suffering begotten by a cataclysm, which had
rent asunder walls of life enclosing vistas he had never before seen;
these had transformed him. Pain had given him dignity of a savage kind,
a grim quiet which belonged to conflict and betokened grimmer purpose.
In the eyes was the darkness of the well of despair; but at his lips
was iron resolution.

In reply to Stafford he said quietly: "All right, I understand. I know
how to deal with Krool."

As Stafford withdrew, Byng came slowly down the room till he stood at
the end of the table opposite to Krool.

Standing there, he looked at the Boer with hard eyes.

"I know all, Krool," he said. "You sold me and my country--you tried to
sell me and my country to Oom Paul. You dog, that I snatched from the
tiger death, not once but twice."

"It is no good. I am a Hottentot. I am for the Boer, for Oom Paul. I
would have die for you, but--"

"But when the chance came to betray the thing I cared for more than I
would twenty lives--my country--you tried to sell me and all who worked
with me."

"It would be same to you if the English go from the Vaal," said the
half-caste, huskily, not looking into the eyes fixed on him. "But it
matter to me that the Boer keep all for himself what he got for
himself. I am half Boer. That is why."

"You defend it--tell me, you defend it?"

There was that in the voice, some terrible thing, which drew Krool's
eyes in spite of himself, and he met a look of fire and wrath.

"I tell why. If it was bad, it was bad. But I tell why, that is all. If
it is not good, it is bad, and hell is for the bad; but I tell why."

"You got money from Oom Paul for the man--Fellowes?" It was hard for
him to utter the name.

Krool nodded.

"Every year--much?"

Again Krool nodded.

"And for yourself--how much?"

"Nothing for myself; no money, Baas."

"Only Oom Paul's love!"

Krool nodded again.

"But Oom Paul flayed you at Vleifontein; tied you up and skinned you
with a sjambok.... That didn't matter, eh? And you went on loving him.
I never touched you