factured from the soft
native steel which takes an edge like a razor, and with a handle cut out
of the tusk of a hippopotamus. For the rest, it was about a foot long,
with three grooves running the length of the blade, and very heavy.

"Stop cutting notches, Jantje, and let me look at that knife."

He obeyed, and put it into her hand.

"That knife would kill a man, Jantje," she said.

"Yes, yes," he answered: "no doubt it has killed many men."

"It would kill Frank Muller, now, would it not?" she went on, suddenly
bending forward and fixing her dark eyes upon the little man's jaundiced
orbs.

"Yah, yah," he said starting back, "it would kill him dead. Ah! what a
thing it would be to kill him!" he added, making a fierce sound, half
grunt, half laugh.

"He killed your father, Jantje."

"Yah, yah, he killed my father," said Jantje, his eyes beginning to roll
with rage.

"He killed your mother."

"Yah, he killed my mother," he repeated after her with eager ferocity.

"And your uncle. He killed your uncle."

"And my uncle too," he went on, shaking his fist and twitching his long
toes as his hoarse voice rose to a subdued scream. "But he will die in
blood--the old Englishwoman, his mother, said it when the devil was in
her, and the devils never lie. Look! I draw Baas Frank's circle in the
dust with my foot; and listen, I say the words--I say the words," and he
muttered something rapidly; "an old, old witch-doctor taught me how to
do it, and what to say. Once before I did it, and there was a stone in
the circle, now there is no stone: look, _the ends meet_. He will die in
blood; he will die _soon_. I know how to read the omen;" and he gnashed
his teeth and sawed the air with his clenched fists.

"Yes, you are right, Jantje," she said, still holding him with her dark
eyes. "He will die in blood, and he will die to-night, and _you_ will
kill him, Jantje."

The Hottentot started, and turned pale under his yellow skin.

"How?" he said; "how?"

"Bend forward, Jantje, and I will tell you how;" and Jess whispered for
some minutes into his ear.

"Yes! yes! yes!" he said when she had done. "Oh, what a fine thing it is
to be clever like the white people! I will kill him to-night, and then
I can cut out the notches, and the spooks of my father and my mother and
my uncle will stop howling round me in the dark as they do now, when I
am asleep."

CHAPTER XXXIII

VENGEANCE

For three or four minutes more Jess a