t he meant to do, he proceeded
to make it practically impossible for his robbery to be discovered,
or at any rate very improbable, by lighting a match, and, having first
glanced round to see that nobody was looking, reaching up and applying
it to the thick thatch wherewith the house itself was roofed, the fringe
of which just at this spot was not more than nine feet from the ground.
No rain had fallen at Mooifontein for several days, and there had been
a hot sun with wind. As a result the thatch was dry as tinder. The light
caught in a second, and in two more a thin line of fire was running up
the roof.

Hendrik paused, stepped a few paces back, resting his shoulders against
the wall, immediately the other side of which was Jantje, and began
to chuckle aloud and rub his hands as he admired the results of
his labours. This proved too much for the Hottentot behind him. The
provocation was overmastering, and so was the opportunity. Jantje
carried with him the thick stick on which he was so fond of cutting
notches. Raising it in both hands be brought the heavy knob down with
all his strength upon the one-eyed villain's unprotected skull. It was
a thick skull, but the knob prevailed against it, and fractured it, and
down went the estimable witch-doctor as though he were dead.

Next, taking a leaf out of his fallen enemy's book, Jantje slipped over
the wall, and, seizing the senseless man, he dragged him by one arm into
the kitchen and rolled him under the table to keep company with the
dead dog. Then, filled with a fearful joy, he crawled out, to a point of
vantage in a little plantation seventy or eighty yards to the right of
the house, whence he could see what the Boers were doing and watch the
conflagration that he knew must ensue, for the fire had taken instant
and irremediable hold.

Ten minutes or so afterwards that amiable character Hendrik partially
regained his senses, to find himself surrounded by a sea of fire, in
which he perished miserably, not having power to move, and his feeble
cries being totally swallowed up and lost in the fierce roaring of the
flames. Such was the very appropriate end of Hendrik and of the magic of
Hendrik.

Down by the flagstaff the old man lay in his fit, while Bessie tended
him and a posse of Boers stood round, smoking and laughing or lounging
about with an air of lordly superiority, well worthy of victors in
possession.

"Will none of you help me to take him to the house?" she c