of the meat for the two in the sluit, and walked away.

When little Jannita awoke it was almost sunset. She sat up very
frightened, but her goats were all about her. She began to drive them
home. "I do not think there are any lost," she said.

Dirk, the Hottentot, had brought his flock home already, and stood at
the kraal door with his ragged yellow trousers. The fat old Boer put his
stick across the door, and let Jannita's goats jump over, one by one. He
counted them. When the last jumped over: "Have you been to sleep today?"
he said; "there is one missing."

Then little Jannita knew what was coming, and she said, in a low voice,
"No." And then she felt in her heart that deadly sickness that you feel
when you tell a lie; and again she said, "Yes."

"Do you think you will have any supper this evening?" said the Boer.

"No," said Jannita.

"What do you think you will have?"

"I don't know," said Jannita.

"Give me your whip," said the Boer to Dirk, the Hottentot.

*****

The moon was all but full that night. Oh, but its light was beautiful!

The little girl crept to the door of the outhouse where she slept, and
looked at it. When you are hungry, and very, very sore, you do not
cry. She leaned her chin on one hand, and looked, with her great dove's
eyes--the other hand was cut open, so she wrapped it in her pinafore.
She looked across the plain at the sand and the low karoo-bushes, with
the moonlight on them.

Presently, there came slowly, from far away, a wild springbuck. It
came close to the house, and stood looking at it in wonder, while
the moonlight glinted on its horns, and in its great eyes. It stood
wondering at the red brick walls, and the girl watched it. Then,
suddenly, as if it scorned it all, it curved its beautiful back and
turned; and away it fled over the bushes and sand, like a sheeny streak
of white lightning. She stood up to watch it. So free, so free! Away,
away! She watched, till she could see it no more on the wide plain.

Her heart swelled, larger, larger, larger: she uttered a low cry; and
without waiting, pausing, thinking, she followed on its track. Away,
away, away! "I--I also!" she said, "I--I also!"

When at last her legs began to tremble under her, and she stopped to
breathe, the house was a speck behind her. She dropped on the earth, and
held her panting sides.

She began to think now.

If she stayed on the plain they would trace her footsteps in the morning
and catch her