flowers are calling, Dick--my love, come soon."

Some hundred yards--Pah! Jan felt strangely sick--
_She_ must have dragged that fearful thing away,
The devil's brood had claimed. The Rooinek
Was safe. Heaven knew how desperate the fray!
The fierce shot spent, the havoc, showed too well
Her awful battle with those fiends from hell.

He spoke her in the Taal; he touched her hand;
She scarcely moved, but with a tear-stained smile
Babbled in words he could not understand,
Nodding her head towards the plains the while.
"The other one is dead. He was so black.
He killed my husband, so I killed him back.

"I want to lay the moonflowers on Dick's breast,
They told me he was calling, so I came;
They kept on nodding, nodding to the west,
I want to have those moonflowers, the same
That told me. Dick is dead. So cold and dead
I don't remember all the flowers said.

"But if we are not very quick, the shroud
Of silver cross-stitch, woven star on star,
Will be quite stolen by the thunder-cloud,
It's creeping, creeping, growling from afar."
"Ja, Ja," the old Boer nodded. "Both are dead."
"One must be buried!" so the good vrouw said.

They laboured hard to dig the white man's bed,
Jan Rissik and his trusty man and boys,
Then laid him gently down. With prayer unsaid
But beating at her throat, no word that cloys
Or mars itself in speech--Beth flung the sod
Over her love--and left him there--with God.

Only a dusty mound to mark his grave,
A dream out-dreamed, a tiny buried cross
From off her neck. The Lord had called, who gave
His rich Acceptance that the world deems loss!
Father, forgive us! For our eyes that see
Only our sorrows--when we should see Thee!

* * * * *

To Cellier's farm Jan Rissik trekked at morn.
The English girl lay sleeping in his cart
Clasped to the Dutch vrouw's breast. No longer torn
By grief and passion, human fears, her heart
Was now at rest; her Christ-soul lulled to peace,
Her hands outstretched, to meet the Great Release.

[B] Aasvogel--vultures.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Provocations, by Sibyl Bristowe

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