a lad. I tell you that the other day you tried to
murder John Niel, pretending to mistake him for a buck! And now you, who
petitioned for this country to be taken over by the Queen, and have gone
round singing out your loyalty at the top of your voice, come and tell
me that you are plotting to bring about an insurrection, and to
plunge the land into war, and ask me for Bessie as the price of your
protection! But I will tell you something in answer, Frank Muller," and
the old man rose up, his keen eyes flashing in wrath, and, straightening
his bent frame, he pointed towards the door. "Go out of that door and
never come through it again. I rely upon God and the English nation
to protect me, and not on such as you, and I would rather see my dear
Bessie dead in her coffin than married to a knave and traitor and a
murderer like Frank Muller. Go!"

The Boer turned white with fury as he listened. Twice he tried to speak
and failed, and when the words did come they were so choked and laden
with passion as to be scarcely audible. When thwarted he was liable
to these accesses to rage, and, speaking figuratively, they spoilt his
character. Could he have kept his head, he would have been a perfect and
triumphant villain, but as it was, the carefully planned and audacious
rascality of years was always apt to be swept away by the sudden gale
of his furious passion. It was in such an outburst of rage that he had
assaulted John in the inn yard at Wakkerstroom, and thereby put him on
his guard against him, and now it mastered him once more.

"Very well, Silas Croft," he said at last, "I will go; but mark this, I
will come back, and when I come it shall be with men armed with rifles.
I will burn this pretty place of yours, that you are so proud of, over
your head, and I will kill you and your friend the Englishman, and
take Bessie away, and very soon she shall be glad enough to marry Frank
Muller; but then I will not marry her--no, not if she goes on her knees
to me--and she shall go on her knees often enough. We will see then what
God and the English nation will do to protect you. God and the English
nation! Call on the sheep and the horses; call on the rocks and the
trees, and you will get a better answer."

"Go!" thundered the old man, "or by the God you blaspheme I will put a
bullet through you," and he reached towards a rifle that hung over the
mantelpiece, "or my Kafirs shall whip you off the place."

Frank Muller waited no more