at I was saying to you, and I tell you he will
save it up and save it up, and one day he will bring it all out to the
_volk_, and call me a traitor to the 'land' and ruin me. I know him. He
knows how to balance a long stick on his little finger so that the ends
keep even. Oh, yes, he can ride two horses at once, and blow hot and
blow cold. He is a devil of a man, a devil of a man! And what did he
mean by swearing at you like that? Is it about the _missie_ (girl), I
wonder? Almighty! who can say? Ah! that reminds me--though I'm sure I
don't know why it should--the Kafirs tell me that there is a big herd of
buck--vilderbeeste and blesbok--on my outlying place about an hour and
a half (ten miles) from Mooifontein. Can you hold a rifle, Captain? You
look like a bit of a hunter."

"Oh, yes, Meinheer!" said John, delighted at the prospect of some
shooting.

"Ah, I thought so. All you English are sportsmen, though you don't know
how to kill buck. Well now, you take _Oom_ Croft's light Scotch cart and
two good horses, and come over to my place--not to-morrow, for my wife's
cousin is coming to see us, and an old cat she is, but rich; she has a
thousand pounds in gold in the waggon-box under her bed--nor the next
day, for it is the Lord's day, and one can't shoot creatures on the
Lord's day--but Monday, yes, Monday. You will be there by eight o'clock,
and you shall see how to kill vilderbeeste. Almighty! now what can that
jackal Frank Muller have meant? Ah! he is the devil of a man," and,
shaking his head ponderously, the jolly old Boer departed, and presently
John saw him riding away upon a fat little shooting-pony which cannot
have weighed much more than himself, but that cantered off with him on
his fifteen-mile journey as though he were a feather-weight.

CHAPTER IX

JANTJE'S STORY

Shortly after the old Boer had gone, John went into the yard of the
hotel to see to the inspanning of the Cape cart, where his attention
was at once arrested by the sight of a row in active progress--at least,
from the crowd of Kafirs and idlers and the angry sounds and curses
which proceeded from them, he judged that it was a row. Nor was he wrong
in his conclusion. In the corner of the yard, close by the stable-door,
surrounded by the aforesaid crowd, stood Frank Muller; a heavy
_sjambock_ in his raised hand, as though in the act to strike. Before
him, a very picture of drunken fury, his lips drawn up like a snarling
dog's, so that the