One of these I noticed,
as we do notice things at such times, was the same in which Marais had
trekked with his daughter, his favourite wagon that once I had helped to
fit with a new dissel-boom.

Before me were the rough houses built of the branches of trees, daubed
over with mud, or rather the backs of them, for they faced west. I stood
still for a moment, and as I stood thought that I heard a faint sound as
of someone reciting slowly. I crept along the end of the outermost house
and, rubbing the cold sweat from my eyes, peeped round the corner, for
it occurred to me that savages might be in possession. Then I saw what
caused the sound. A tattered, blackened, bearded man stood at the head
of a long and shallow hole saying a prayer.

It was Henri Marais, although at the time I did not recognise him, so
changed was he. A number of little mounds to the right and left of him
told me, however, that the hole was a grave. As I watched two more men
appeared, dragging between them the body of a woman, which evidently
they had not strength to carry, as its legs trailed upon the ground.
From the shape of the corpse it seemed to be that of a tall young woman,
but the features I could not see, because it was being dragged face
downwards. Also the long hair hanging from the head hid them. It was
dark hair, like Marie's. They reached the grave, and tumbled their sad
burden into it; but I--I could not stir!

At length my limbs obeyed my will. I went forward to the men and said in
a hollow voice in Dutch:

"Whom do you bury?"

"Johanna Meyer," answered someone mechanically, for they did not seem
to have taken the trouble to look at me. As I listened to those words my
heart, which had stood still waiting for the answer, beat again with a
sudden bound that I could hear in the silence.

I looked up. There, advancing from the doorway of one of the houses,
very slowly, as though overpowered by weakness, and leading by the hand
a mere skeleton of a child, who was chewing some leaves, I saw--I saw
_Marie Marais!_ She was wasted to nothing, but I could not mistake her
eyes, those great soft eyes that had grown so unnaturally large in the
white, thin face.

She too saw me and stared for one moment. Then, loosing the child,
she cast up her hands, through which the sunlight shone as through
parchment, and slowly sank to the ground.

"She has gone, too," said one of the men in an indifferent voice. "I
thought she would not last another