ome in. I am sorry this little French ape has been
teasing you.'

"Well, I rode off next day, and by the merest chance shot two
zwart-wit-pens quite early, and came into camp again at noon. As I rode
up, I heard piercing shrieks and howls, and cries for mercy, which I
knew could come only from Klein Pierre. Then I turned a corner of the
_scherm_ (camp fence), and saw at once what was up. Almighty! Although
I was startled and surprised, I could scarcely help laughing. There was
Pierre Cellois, tied up to our wagon-wheel; all the native servants
standing round, and the vrouw, very red and angry, flogging away at the
fellow's back with a good _sjambok_ (whip) of sea-cow hide.

"I jumped off my horse, and ran up to the group. `Anna! Anna!' I
cried, `what in the Heer God's name are you doing?'

"The vrouw, I can tell you, was mad with anger. She turned upon me,
threw down the _sjambok_, and said, `If you hadn't been a fool,
Cornelis, with no more than half an eye, this need never have happened.
This little baboon fellow has insulted me grossly. He came up to me,
put his arm round my waist, as I sat in my chair, and kissed me upon the
mouth. And so I have had him tied up by the boys, and flogged him. Now
do you finish with him.'

"Well, I was pretty angry--angry at being scolded before all the boys,
and angry at this little scoundrel's impudence, and so I picked up the
_sjambok_, and gave him half a dozen or so for myself. Then I had him
untied, and let him go, and bade him inspan and trek at once before
worse happened.

"Almighty! how mad the fellow was. He cried, he screamed, he wanted to
fight me with pistols. But I just sat on my wagon-box, with my gun on
my knees, and bade him be off. Well, he trekked in an hour--my boys
helped him to inspan the oxen--and we never saw him again. I heard that
he went down to Mooi River Dorp (Potchefstrom) and lodged a complaint
with Martinus Wessels Pretorius, our commandant, and wanted
satisfaction, and threatened a war, and all sorts of things. But, bless
you, old Pretorius knew a thing or two. He got the true story from the
Frenchman's Hottentots, and just packed him off south of the Vaal River,
and he passed, as I heard, to the old colony, and so home to France.
That is the story of the vrouw's little Frenchman; the vrouw, yonder,
will tell you if it is true or no."

The old lady, as Cornelis finished speaking, stood just within the
doorway of the house, loo