and whine for it, beg for it, pray with clasped hands for
it, and you shall take as much as you can grasp. Do that,
d'you hear? I want to see you on your knees for once and
groveling for a handful of sovereigns. Go on; get down with
you!'

"Barend gave a short laugh. It was amusing of Emmanuel, he
thought, to promise this on a condition so impossible. The
woman spun on her heel and faced him sharply with bent
brows and a heaving bosom.

"'Kneel, my beauty,' said Emmanuel again mockingly, but
watching the woman as she stared at Barend. There was a
kind of wonder on her dark cruel face as she studied the
big Boer's serene countenance and masterful poise of head,
and noted there the mild amusement which is the scorn of a
good man.

"'Kneel now, and plead for it,' said Emmanuel again; and of
a sudden a doubt came over Barend. There was a distress
plain to see, something remorseful and newly born surging
in this harlot; there was an appeal, fiercely shameful, in
the hard eyes bent on his.

"Of a sudden she wheeled round and spat an awful curse at
the sick man. 'Keep your damned money!' she went on, while
the thick veins in her neck grew to dark ridges. 'D'you
think you can buy everything? You've sold your life and
your innocence for filth--d'you suppose it's all to buy? You
an' me's in the same box, my boy--bad 'ems both, but you
don't make a dog of me.'

"She turned to Barend. 'Let me pass, you big hulking--'
she hesitated, looking at him.

"'Oh, you poor innocent,' she cried, with a laugh, and ran
past him and out at the door.

"Emmanuel called after her, and bade her come back and take
what she would, but her heels rattled on the stairway and
she was gone.

"'Is that the strange woman?' asked Peter, quoting from the
Proverbs.

"Emmanuel laughed. 'Strange as the devil,' he said, with
his voice running weak. 'You see souls in this town,
cousins--not bodies only, as on the farm. Souls that blush
and bleed, I tell you. But go to the head of the stairway,
Barend, and shout as loud as you can for Jim. Just shout
"Jim"!'

"Barend went and roared the name half a dozen times. There
came at last a man with a dirty coat buttoned to the neck,
grimy, ill-shod and white-eyed, and to him Emmanuel,
speaking from behind the heap of sovereigns, to which the
man's evil pale eyes strayed every moment, gave orders.

"'Tell the boys,' he said, 'that there's a spree here
tonight. Get the whole gang, Jim, and particularly