the court.

One by one the men went, till at last Muller was left alone, seated on
the saw-bench, his head sunk upon his breast, in one hand holding the
warrant, while with the other he stroked his golden beard. Presently he
ceased stroking his beard and sat for some minutes perfectly still--so
still that he might have been carved in stone. By this time the
afternoon sun had sunk behind the hill and the deep waggon-house was
full of shadow that seemed to gather round him and invest him with a
sombre, mysterious grandeur. He looked like a King of Evil, for Evil has
her princes as well as Good, whom she stamps with an imperial seal of
power, and crowns with a diadem of her own, and among these Frank Muller
was surely great. A little smile of triumph played upon his beautiful
cruel face, a little light danced within his cold eyes and ran down the
yellow beard. At that moment he might have sat for a portrait of his
master, the devil.

Presently he awoke from his reverie. "I have her!" he said to himself;
"I have her in a vice! She cannot escape me; she cannot let the old man
die! Those curs have served my purpose well; they are as easy to play on
as a fiddle, and I am a good player. Yes, and now we are getting to the
end of the tune."

CHAPTER XXX

"WE MUST PART, JOHN"

Jess and her companion stood in awed silence and gazed at the blackening
and distorted corpses of the thunder-blasted Boers. Then they passed by
them to the tree which grew some ten paces or more on the other side of
the place of death. There was some difficulty in leading the horses by
the bodies, but at last they came with a wheel and a snort of suspicion,
and were tied up to the tree by John. Meanwhile Jess took some of the
hard-boiled eggs out of the basket and vanished, remarking that she
should take her clothes off and dry them in the sun while she at her
breakfast, and that she advised him to do likewise. Accordingly, so soon
as she was well out of sight behind the shelter of the rocks she set
to work to free herself from her sodden garments, a task of no little
difficulty. Then she wrung them out and spread them one by one on the
flat water-washed stones around, which were by now thoroughly warmed
with the sun. Next she climbed to a pool under the shadow of the steep
bank, in the rock-bed of the river, where she bathed her bruises and
washed the sand and mud from her hair and feet. Her bath finished, she
returned and sat herself on a s