poken to them
and shaken their hands, you shall bring in your rifle--'

"'That will do,' said Klein Andries. 'You need tell me no
more. I will not do it.'

"'But you are my first-born,' said the father.

"'It is all the same; I will not do it.'

"'Then you can get out of my house, with your wife and your
children, and go look for a stone on which to lay your
heads.'

"'That is very easy,' answered Klein Andries, quite calmly.
'No doubt we shall find that stone you speak of.'

"'And I will get Piet to do it,' said the old man.

"'No,' replied Klein Andries. 'Piet shall not do it.
Nobody shall do it. I will not have it done.'

"'Andries,' said the old man, 'you and I must not talk
thus. I am your father, and I tell you to do me this
service. Say rather, I ask it of you. It is no more than an
act of kindness to a stricken man; your hand on the gun
will be the hand of mercy.'

"'But I cannot do it,' cried out Klein Andries in a sort of
pain.

"'You will do it,' said the old man. 'Remember you are the
eldest of my sons. You will do it, Andries?'

"'No,' said Andries.

"'You will do it?'

"'No!'

"'Then, Andries,' said the old man, half raising himself as
he lay, and pointing a finger at his son--'then, Andries,
eldest son and dearest and all, I will curse you.'

"For a full minute the two looked each other in the eyes,
and then Klein Andries let his hand fall on his knee like a
man beaten and broken.

"'It shall be as you say,' he answered at last. 'I will do
what you ask, but--it will spoil my life for me.'

"'Thank you, my son,' said the old man, sinking back.

"'Oh, I will do it,' said Andries. 'But I hold it a sin, a
black and bloody sin, that I commit with open eyes and a
full knowledge. But I will do it.'

"So the thing happened, and all that week before his death
the old man suffered little. As he said himself, his last
taste of life was sweet in his mouth. He thought much upon
his grave and the manner of his burying, and would often
talk with Klein Andries and Piet, and give them directions.

"'I will not be buried in the kraal,' he said one day. 'My
sister Greta never had any love for me, and I had just as
lief not disturb her. Put me on top of the hill there; I
was always one for an open view.'

"From where he lay he could see through the window the
place where he desired to be buried, and the grave of his
cousin Cornel, dead twenty years before..

"'Put me, then, on top of the h