solemn intention.

"'He means to reach the farm.' said Barend, after glancing
at him.

"Peter drew rein. 'And yet,' he said, 'he will never do it
if we travel thus. We killed horses to make the city in
three days; going at this rate, it will take us six to
return.'

"'Well,' replied Barend, 'what else is there to do?'

"'Only one thing,' said Peter, 'your horse is the weight-
carrier. You must take Emmanuel over your saddle-bow, and
we must kill more horses.'

"'But a dead man,' said Barend. 'It is like a blasphemy.'

"'We can do nothing else,' said Peter, and after a little
more talking they made the change."

The Vrouw Grobelaar paused and looked at us. Katje was
tight in the crook of my arm.

"Words limp while horses stride free," she said, "but
conceive that ride. Taking horses where they could find
them, they rested no more, nor drew rein save to fill and
light their pipes. From Baviaan's Nek they traveled at the
canter across the mimosa swamp, and so by the Rhenoster
Drift to Ookiep, where Barend's horse fell and he and that
other rolled on the veld together. When Peter had found and
brought another horse, they made one stage to Jantje's
Kraal, and thence, galloping wordless through the night, to
Zwartvark. Long rides, you will say! Aye, rides to
remember; but think of the brimming stillness of the
journey, hushed and governed by that silent companion,
while thought could not stray nor fancy escape from the
death that chased at the elbow of each. When, on the third
morning, as the sun came spouting up from the low country,
they saw afar the roof that was their goal, Peter cried
aloud like a child awaking from evil dreams.

"Ere noon their hoofs knocked on the stones in the front
kraal, and they bore the body to the shade of the tobacco
shed.

"'And now,' said Peter, when that was done, 'who is to tell
the ou tante?'

"Barend leaned at the door-post with his arm cast up over
his face and said nought, but there came from the house a
girl of the neighborhood, who laid a finger to her lips.

"'Hush,' she said. 'Make no noise about this house. Where
have you been, the two of you? An hour earlier, and you had
been in time. As it is, the Vrouw van der Westhuizen died
with no kin about her.'"

THE SACRIFICE

"Do not think," said the Vrouw Grobelaar, looking at me
with a hard unwinking eye, "that idle men should have
pretty wives. Though Katje will lose that poppy red-and-
white when she begins