" asked Marais, "to abandon a comrade in misfortune, one of
our own blood?"

"Mein Gott!" replied Vrouw Prinsloo; "he is no blood of mine, the
evil-odoured Portuguee. But I admit he is of yours, Heer Marais, being
your sister's son, so it is evident that you should be the one to go to
seek after him."

"That seems to be so, Vrouw Prinsloo," said Marais in his meditative
manner; "yet I must remember that I have Marie to look after."

"Ach! and so had he, too, until he remembered his own skin, and went off
with the only horse and all the powder, leaving her and the rest of us
to starve. Well, you won't go, and Prinsloo won't go, nor my boy either,
for I'll see to that; so Meyer must go."

"Nein, nein, good vrouw," answered Meyer, "I have those children that
are left to me to consider."

"Then," exclaimed Vrouw Prinsloo triumphantly, "nobody will go, so let
us forget this stinkcat, as he forgot us."

"Does it seem right," asked Marais again, "that a Christian man should
be left to starve in the wilderness?" and he looked at me.

"Tell me, Heer Marais," I remarked, answering the look, "why should I
of all people go to look for the Heer Pereira, one who has not dealt too
well with me?"

"I do not know, Allan. Yet the Book tells us to turn the other cheek and
to forget injuries. Still, it is for you to judge, remembering that we
must answer for all things at the last day, and not for me. I only know
that were I your age and not burdened with a daughter to watch over, _I_
should go."

"Why should you talk to me thus?" I asked with indignation. "Why do
you not go yourself, seeing that I am quite ready to look after Marie?"
(Here the Vrouw Prinsloo and the other Boers tittered.) "And why do you
not address your remarks to these other heeren instead of to me, seeing
that they are the friends and trek-companions of your nephew?"

At this point the male Prinsloos and Meyer found that they had business
elsewhere.

"It is for you to judge, yet remember, Allan, that it is an awful thing
to appear before our Maker with the blood of a fellow creature upon our
hands. But if you and these other hard-hearted men will not go, I at my
age, and weak as I am with all that I have suffered, will go myself."

"Good," said Vrouw Prinsloo; "that is the best way out of it. You will
soon get sick of the journey, Heer Marais, and we shall see no more of
the stinkcat."

Marais rose in a resigned fashion, for he never deigned to argue wi