In despair she sought her wagon again. A terrible night followed.
Barend was awake long before the light with raging thirst in his throat.
The mother bathed his hands and brow with vinegar, moistened his lips
with it, did all she could to soothe and comfort him: it was of slight
avail. The fever increased; the poor sufferer's cries for water were
incessant. What Hendrika went through during that dreadful night no pen
can tell. The desert was a hell; the stars above mocked her; the moon
gleamed in contemptuous serenity; the airs whispering through the bush
passed idly by, tittering their light gossip one to another. Where was
God, that He could let her child suffer so? Surely, surely, all the
Predikants and the Doppers and the rest of them were wrong! There could
be no God, and the Bible was a lie! Sometimes, when Barend fell asleep
for a few minutes, she prayed and wrestled with her agony, and fifty
times sprang up thinking she heard her husband's approach.

At dawn Oosthuysen was stirring, and got down from his kartel. Hendrika
had been watching like a hawk for this. She hurried swiftly across, and
in rapid sentences told him of her child's danger. She fell on her
knees before him--this proud, beautiful, strong woman, whose boast had
been that she could have had every Boer of the Transvaal at her feet--
and begged him in a flood of tears to give her some water and save her
child. At this moment, even after these scores of hours of fatigue and
thirst and bitter suffering, and under the grey morning light, the woman
looked very beautiful, worn and dishevelled though she was. Her _kapje_
was off, and her golden hair, unfettered by the usual tight Dutch cap,
crowned her with a strange glory.

The Boer was visibly moved.

"Hendrika," he whispered hoarsely, "I love you still. Yes, I love you
more than ever. I will give you all the water I have. Allemaghte!
Yes, I'll foot it without water to Inkouane if you will leave your
husband and come away with me. We can trek far to the north and make a
home of our own. Come, Hendrika! After we reach Inkouane, your husband
will be behind for his cattle, and we can get away; and if you like,
bring the boy too. There is the water," pointing under his wagon,
"nearly a vatjeful; you shall have it all. Think well of what I say.
We have been happy before, and can be happy again."

Hendrika sprang to her feet with flashing eyes.

"You must be mad," she said, with fier