pipe. "Get well, get well as soon as you can, Hernan
Pereira."

It was at this juncture that Marais arrived, accompanied by Marie. Where
he came from I do not know, but I think he must have been keeping in the
background on purpose to see what kind of a reception Pereira would meet
with.

"Silence, brothers," he said. "Is this the way you greet my nephew, who
has returned from the gate of death, when you should be on your knees
thanking God for his deliverance?"

"Then go on your knees and thank Him yourself, Henri Marais," screamed
the irrepressible Vrouw Prinsloo. "I give thanks for the safe return of
Allan here, though it is true they would be warmer if he had left this
stinkcat behind him. Allemachte! Henri Marais, why do you make so much
of this Portuguese fellow? Has he bewitched you? Or is it because he
is your sister's son, or because you want to force Marie there to marry
him? Or is it, perhaps, that he knows of something bad in your past
life, and you have to bribe him to keep his mouth shut?"

Now, whether this last unpleasant suggestion was a mere random arrow
drawn from Vrouw Prinsloo's well-stored quiver, or whether the vrouw had
got hold of the tail-end of some long-buried truth, I do not know. Of
course, however, the latter explanation is possible. Many men have done
things in their youth which they do not wish to see dug up in their
age; and Pereira may have learned a family secret of the kind from his
mother.

At any rate, the effect of the old lady's words upon Marais was quite
remarkable. Suddenly he went into one of his violent and constitutional
rages. He cursed Vrouw Prinsloo. He cursed everybody else, assuring them
severally and collectively that Heaven would come even with them. He
said there was a plot against him and his nephew, and that I was at the
bottom of it, I who had made his daughter fond of my ugly little face.
So furious were his words, whereof there were many more which I have
forgotten, that at length Marie began to cry and ran away. Presently,
too, the Boers strolled off, shrugging their shoulders, one of them
saying audibly that Marais had gone quite mad at last, as he always
thought he would.

Then Marais followed them, throwing up his arms and still cursing as he
went, and, slipping over the tail of the pack-ox, Pereira followed him.
So the Vrouw Prinsloo and I were left alone, for the coloured men had
departed, as they always do when white people begin to quarrel.

"T