l.

"You say," remarked old Silas at last, "that the Englishwoman said that
a curse would fall on them, and that they would die in blood? She was
right. Twelve years ago _Oom_ Jacob and his wife were murdered by a
party of Mapoch's Kafirs down on the edge of that very Lydenburg veldt.
There was a great noise about it at the time, I remember, but nothing
came of it. Baas Frank was not there. He was away shooting buck, so he
escaped, and inherited all his father's farms and cattle, and came to
live here."

"So!" said the Hottentot, without showing the slightest interest or
surprise. "I knew it would be so, but I wish I had been there to see it.
I saw that there was a devil in the woman, and that they would die as
she said. When there is a devil in people they always speak the truth,
because they can't help it. Look, Baas, I draw a circle in the sand with
my foot, and I say some words so, and at last the ends touch. There,
that is the circle of _Oom_ Jacob and his wife the Englishwoman. The
ends have touched and they are dead. An old witch-doctor taught me how
to draw the circle of a man's life and what words to say. And now I draw
another of Baas Frank. Ah! there is a stone sticking up in the way. The
ends will not touch. But now I work and work and work with my foot, and
say the words and say the words, and so--the stone comes up and the ends
touch now. Thus it is with Baas Frank. One day the stone will come up
and the ends will touch, and he too will die in blood. The devil in
the Englishwoman said so, and devils cannot lie or speak half the truth
only. And now, look, I rub my foot over the circles and they are gone,
and there is only the path again. That means that when they have died
in blood they will be quite forgotten and stamped out. Even their graves
will be flat," and Jantje wrinkled up his yellow face into a smile, or
rather a grin, and then added in a matter-of-fact way:

"Does the Baas wish the grey mare to have one bundle of green forage or
two?"

CHAPTER X

JOHN HAS AN ESCAPE

On the following Monday, John, taking Jantje to drive him, departed in
a rough Scotch cart, to which were harnessed two of the best horses at
Mooifontein, to shoot buck at Hans Coetzee's.

He reached the place at about half-past eight, and concluded, from the
fact of the presence of several carts and horses, that he was not the
only guest. Indeed, the first person whom he saw as the cart pulled up
was his late enemy, Fran