ettles it. Well, it did not
take long for Dia to lose all the froth and foolishness
that were in her. The child that was more than half of her
nature was simply trampled to death, for Jan Uys had a
short way of shaping his women-folk. She used to cry, they
say, but never dared to rebel, which I can understand,
knowing the man and the way he had of giving an order as
though it were impossible for any one to disobey him. In
particular, she could not learn to make cheese, and spoilt
enough milk to feed a dorp on.

"'Very well,' he said, 'if you cannot make the cheese the
Kafir woman shall do it. And you shall do her work at the
churn-handle. I want no idlers in my house.'

"And there he had her at the churn, grinding like a Kafir,
for three days in every week, a white woman and his wife.
Once she came to him and held out her hands.

"'Look,' she said. That was all: 'look!'

"Her fingers and her palms were flayed and raw and oozed
blood, but he simply glanced at them.

"'You should have learned to work before,' was all his
answer. 'Every one pays for learning, and you pay late. Go
back to the churn.'

"The next thing', of course, was that she was missing, but
Jan Uys was not troubled. He mounted his horse and rode out
along the Drifts Road, going quietly, with his pipe alight.
It was the road by which he had brought her from her home,
and he knew the girl would try to go to her mother. In a
few miles he picked up her spoor, and found some of the
sole of one of her shoes. A mimosa carried a shred of her
dress, and in another place she had sat down. As he went
farther, he found she had sat down in many places.

"'Good,' he said. 'She is tired, and soon I shall catch
her.'

"He came up with her twenty miles along the road, sitting
down again. Her hair was all about her shoulders, and her
face was white, with the great eyes burning in it like
those of a woman in a fever.

"'You are ready to come back?' he asked, sitting on his
horse, smoking and scowling down on her.

"'What are you going to do with me?' she asked in a
trembling voice.

"He laughed that short ugly laugh of his. 'You are a
child,' he answered. 'I shall whip you.'

"Then she commenced to plead with him to let her go, to
return without her, to spare her, to kill her. In the
middle of it he leaned from the saddle, and caught hold of
her arms and lifted her before him.

"'All this may stop,' he said, turning the horse. 'You have
brought disgr