ho are coming with power to take him
away?"

"Do you and Ralph go to the bush-veldt with the cattle to-morrow," I
answered, "and leave me to deal with the Scotchmen."

"Well," said Jan, "I consent, for who can stand up against so many
words, and the Lord knows that to lose Ralph would have broken my heart
as it would have broken that girl's, perhaps more so, since girls change
their fancies, but I am too old to change. Come here, my children."

They came, and he laid one of his big hands upon the head of each of
them, saying:--

"May the God in Heaven bless you both, who to me are one as dear as the
other, making you happy with each other for many long years, and may He
turn aside from you and from us the punishment that is due to all of us
because, on account of our great love, we are holding you back, Ralph,
from the home, the kin and the fortune to which you were born." Then he
kissed each of them on the forehead and let them go.

"If there be any punishment for that which is no sin, on my head be it,"
said Ralph, "since never would I have gone from here by my own will."

"Aye, aye," answered Jan, "but who can take account of the talk of a lad
in love? Well, we have committed the sin and we must bear the sorrow.
Now I go out to see to the kraaling of the cattle, which we will drive
off to the bush-veldt to-morrow at dawn, for I will have naught to do
with these Scotchmen; your mother must settle with them as she wills,
only I beg of her that she will tell me nothing of the bargain. Nay, do
not come with me, Ralph; stop you with your dear, for to-morrow you will
be parted for a while."

So he went, and did not return again till late, and we three sat
together and made pretense to be very happy, but somehow were a little
sad, for Jan's words about sin and sorrow stuck in our hearts, as the
honest words of a stupid, upright man are apt to do.

Now on the morrow at dawn, as had been arranged, Jan and Ralph rode away
to the warm veldt with the cattle, leaving me and Suzanne to look after
the farm. Three days later the Scotchmen came, and then it was that for
love of Ralph and for the sake of the happiness of my daughter I sinned
the greatest sin of all my life--the sin that was destined to shape the
fates of others yet unborn.

I was seated on the _stoep_ in the afternoon when I saw three white men
and some Cape boys, their servants, riding up to the house.

"Here come those who would steal my boy from me,"