is is England, but they are from the
veld. On the veld you know what they would do to you. If you speak
against the Baas, it is bad for you; if you speak against the Baas'
vrouw it will be ten times worse. Do you hear?"

There was a strange silence, in which Stafford could feel Krool's soul
struggling in the dark, as it were--a struggle as of black spirits in
the grey dawn.

"I wait the Baas speak," Krool said at last, with a shiver.

There was no time for Stafford to answer. Wallstein entered the room
hurriedly. "Byng has come. He has been told about him," he said in
French to Stafford, and jerking his head towards Krool.

Stafford rose. "It's all right," he answered in the same language. "I
think things will be safe now. He has a wholesome fear of the Baas."

He turned to Krool. "If you say to the Baas what you have said to me
about Mr. Fellowes or about the Baas's vrouw, you will have a bad time.
You will think that wild hawks are picking out your vitals. If you have
sense, you will do what I tell you."

Krool's eyes were on the door through which Wallstein had come. His
gaze was fixed and tortured. Stafford had suddenly roused in him some
strange superstitious element. He was like a creature of a lower order
awaiting the approach of the controlling power. It was, however, the
door behind him which opened, and he gave a start of surprise and
terror. He knew who it was. He did not turn round, but his head bent
forward, as though he would take a blow from behind, and his eyes
almost closed. Stafford saw with a curious meticulousness the long
eyelashes touch the grey cheek.

"There's no fight in him now," he said to Byng in French. "He was
getting nasty, but I've got him in order. He knows too much. Remember
that, Byng."

Byng's look was as that of a man who had passed through some chamber of
torture, but the flabbiness had gone suddenly from his face, and even
from his figure, though heavy lines had gathered round the mouth and
scarred the forehead. He looked worn and much thinner, but there was a
look in his eyes which Stafford had never seen there--a new look of
deeper seeing, of revelation, of realization. With all his ability and
force, Byng had been always much of a boy, so little at one with the
hidden things--the springs of human conduct, the contradictions of
human nature, the worst in the best of us, the forces that emerge
without warning in all human beings, to send them on untoward courses
and at s