dly at the buckle of her
belt.

"To her! To her--the mother of him who will speak of your wisdom, of
your courage. All to her. I have nothing. Nothing. Take, take."

She tore the belt off and threw it at Joanna's feet. She flung down
with haste the armlets, the gold pins, the flowers; and the long hair,
released, fell scattered over her shoulders, framing in its blackness
the wild exaltation of her face.

"Drive her off, Peter. Drive off the heathen savage," persisted Joanna.
She seemed to have lost her head altogether. She stamped, clinging to
Willems' arm with both her hands.

"Look," cried Aissa. "Look at the mother of your son! She is afraid. Why
does she not go from before my face? Look at her. She is ugly."

Joanna seemed to understand the scornful tone of the words. As Aissa
stepped back again nearer to the tree she let go her husband's arm,
rushed at her madly, slapped her face, then, swerving round, darted at
the child who, unnoticed, had been wailing for some time, and, snatching
him up, flew down to the waterside, sending shriek after shriek in an
access of insane terror.

Willems made for the revolver. Aissa passed swiftly, giving him an
unexpected push that sent him staggering away from the tree. She caught
up the weapon, put it behind her back, and cried--

"You shall not have it. Go after her. Go to meet danger. . . . Go to
meet death. . . . Go unarmed. . . . Go with empty hands and sweet words
. . . as you came to me. . . . Go helpless and lie to the forests, to
the sea . . . to the death that waits for you. . . ."

She ceased as if strangled. She saw in the horror of the passing
seconds the half-naked, wild-looking man before her; she heard the faint
shrillness of Joanna's insane shrieks for help somewhere down by the
riverside. The sunlight streamed on her, on him, on the mute land, on
the murmuring river--the gentle brilliance of a serene morning that,
to her, seemed traversed by ghastly flashes of uncertain darkness. Hate
filled the world, filled the space between them--the hate of race, the
hate of hopeless diversity, the hate of blood; the hate against the man
born in the land of lies and of evil from which nothing but misfortune
comes to those who are not white. And as she stood, maddened, she heard
a whisper near her, the whisper of the dead Omar's voice saying in her
ear: "Kill! Kill!"

She cried, seeing him move--

"Do not come near me . . . or you die now! Go while I remember yet .