his
nerves strung to the highest possible state of tension, and half drunk
as he was, Frank Muller was no more to be played with or irritated than
is a mad bull.

"You black beast!" he yelled, "if ever you dare to mention her name
again like that I will kill you, for all your witchcraft;" and he hurled
him with such force against the wall of the hut that the whole place
shook. The man fell and lay for a moment groaning; then he crept from
the hut on his hands and knees.

Muller sat scowling from under his bent brows, and watched him go. When
he was gone, he rose and fastened the door behind him, then suddenly he
burst into tears, the result, no doubt, of the mingled effects of drink,
mental and physical exhaustion, and the never-resting passion--one can
scarcely call it love--which ate at his heart, like the worm that dieth
not.

"Oh, Bessie, Bessie!" he groaned, "I have done it all for you. Surely
you cannot be angry when I have killed them all for you? Oh, my
darling, my darling! If you only knew how I love you! Oh, my darling,
my darling!" and in an agony of passion he flung himself on to the rough
pallet in the corner of the hut and sobbed himself to sleep.

It would seem that Frank Muller's evil-doing did not make him happy,
the truth being that to enjoy wickedness a man must be not only without
conscience, but also without passion. Now Frank Muller was tormented
with a very effective substitute for the first--superstition, and by the
latter his life was overshadowed, since the beauty of a girl possessed
the power to dominate his wildest moods and to inflict upon him torments
that she herself was incapable even of imagining.

At the first light of dawn Hendrik crept humbly into the hut to wake
his master, and within half an hour they were across the Vaal and on the
road to Wakkerstroom.

As the light increased so did Muller's spirits rise, till at last, when
the red sun came up in glory and swept away the shadows, he felt as
though all the load of guilt and fear that lay upon his heart had
departed with them. He could see now that the death of the two Boers by
lightning was a mere accident--a happy accident, indeed; for, had it not
so chanced, he would have been forced to kill them himself, if he could
not have obtained possession of the warrant by other means. As it was,
he had forgotten about this document; but it did not matter much, he
reflected. Nobody would be likely to find the bodies of the two m