omrades as fast
as his naked legs could carry him.

It was Booby, the follower of Ruyter the Hottentot, who had thus robbed
the unfortunate trader, and, not two hours afterwards, Ruyter himself
fell in with Stephen, wending his way slowly and sadly down the glen.

Desiring his men to proceed in advance, the robber chief asked Orpin to
sit down on a fallen tree beside him, and relate what had happened.
When he had done so, Ruyter shook his head and said in his broken
English--

"You's bin my friend, Orpin, but I cannot help you dis time. Booby not
under me now, an' we's bof b'long to Dragoener's band. I's sorry, but
not can help you."

"Never mind, Ruyter, I daresay you'd help me if you could," said
Stephen, with a sigh; then, with an earnest look in the Hottentot's
face, he continued, "I'm not, however, much distressed about the goods.
The Lord who gave them has taken them away, and can give them back again
if He has a mind to; but tell me, Ruyter, why will you not think of the
things we once spoke of--that time when you were so roughly handled by
Jan Smit--about your soul and the Saviour?"

"How you knows I not tink?" demanded the Hottentot sharply.

"Because any man can know a tree by its fruit," returned Orpin. "If you
had become a Christian, I should not now have found you the leader of a
band of thieves."

"No, I not a Christian, but I _do_ tink," returned Ruyter, "only I no'
can onderstan'. De black heathen--so you calls him--live in de land.
White Christian--so you calls _him_--come and take de land; make slabe
ob black man, and kick 'im about like pair ob ole boots--I _not_
onderstan' nohow."

"Come, I will try to make you understand," returned Orpin, pulling out
the New Testament which he always carried in his pocket. "_Some_ white
men who call themselves Christians are heathens, and _some_ black men
are Christians. We are all,--black and white,--born bad, and God has
sent us a Saviour, and a message, so that all who will, black or white,
may become good." Orpin here commenced to expound the Word, and to tell
the story of the Cross, while the Hottentot listened with rapt
attention, or asked questions which showed that he had indeed been
thinking of these things since his last meeting with the trader, many
years before. He was not very communicative, however, and when the two
parted he declined to make any more satisfactory promise than that he
would continue to "tink."

Stephen Orpin spent t