you or have anything to do with you; and if you are not, I beg
your pardon for coupling you with such a scoundrel.'

"'Oh, that's your tune, is it?' he said with a sneer. 'Well, now,
my dear brother Silas, I want my children. They have got a little
half-brother at home--for I have married again, Silas--who is anxious to
have them to play with, so if you will be so good as to hand them over,
I'll take them away at once.'

"'You'll take them away, will you?' said I, all of a tremble with rage
and fear.

"'Yes, Silas, I will. They are mine by law, and I am not going to
breed children for you to have the comfort of their society. I've taken
advice, Silas, and that's sound law,' and he leered at me again.

"I stood and looked at that man, and thought of how he had treated those
poor children and their young mother, and my blood boiled, and I grew
mad. Without another word I jumped over the half-finished wall, and
caught him by the leg (for I was a strong man ten years ago) and jerked
him off the horse. As he came down he dropped the _sjambock_ from his
hand, and I laid hold of it and then and there gave him the soundest
hiding a man ever had. Lord, how he did holloa! When I was tired I let
him get up.

"'Now,' I said, 'be off with you, and if you come back here I'll bid the
Kafirs hunt you to Natal with their sticks. This is the South African
Republic, and we don't care overmuch about law here.' Which we didn't in
those days.

"'All right, Silas,' he said, 'all right, you shall pay for this.
I'll have those children, and, for your sake, I'll make their lives
a hell--you mark my words--South African Republic or no South African
Republic. I've got the law on my side.'

"Off he rode, cursing and swearing, and I flung his _sjambock_ after
him. This was the first and last time that I saw my brother."

"What became of him?" asked John Niel.

"I'll tell you, just to show you again that there is a Power which keeps
such men in its eye. He rode back to Newcastle that night, and went
about the canteen there abusing me, and getting drunker and drunker,
till at last the canteen keeper sent for his boys to turn him out. Well,
the boys were rough, as Kafirs are apt to be with a drunken white man,
and he struggled and fought, and in the middle of it the blood began to
run from his mouth, and he dropped down dead of a broken blood-vessel,
and there was an end of him. That is the story of the two girls, Captain
Niel, and now I am