and write," said Jan before Ralph could answer. So Ralph
wrote down these words as Jan told them to him:

"Piet van Vooren,

"Sooner would I lay my only child out for burial in the grave than lead
her to the house of a coloured man, a consorter with witch-doctors and
black women and a would-be murderer. That is my answer, and I add
this to it. Set no foot within a mile of my house, for here we shoot
straighter than you do, and if we find you on this place, by the help of
God we will put a bullet through your carcase."

At the foot of this writing, which he would not suffer to be altered,
Jan printed his name in big letters; then he went out to seek the
messenger, whom he found talking to Sihamba, and having given him the
paper bade him begone swiftly to wherever it was he came from. The man,
who was a strong red-coloured savage, marked with a white scar across
the left cheek, and naked except for his moocha and the kaross rolled up
upon his shoulders, took the letter, hid it in his bundle, and went.

Jan also turned to go, but I who had followed him and was watching him,
although he did not know it, saw him hesitate and stop.

"Sihamba," he said, "why were you talking to that man?"

"Because it is my business to know of things, Father of Swallow, and I
wished to learn whence he came."

"Did you tell you then?"

"Not altogether, for someone whom he fears has laid a weight upon
his tongue, but I learned that he lives at a kraal far away in the
mountains, and that this kraal is owned by a white man who keeps wives
and cattle at it, although he is not there himself just now. The rest I
hope to hear when Swart Piet sends him back again, for I have given the
man a medicine to cure his child, who is sick, and he will be grateful
to me."

"How do you know that Swart Piet sent the man?" asked Jan.

She laughed and said: "Surely that was easy to guess; it is my business
to twine little threads into a rope."

Again he turned to go and again came back to speak to her.

"Sihamba," he said, "I have seen you talking to that man before. I
remember the scar upon his face."

"The scar upon his face you may remember," she answered, "but you have
not seen us talking together, for until this hour we never met."

"I can swear it," he said angrily. "I remember the straw hat, the shape
of the man's bundle, the line where the shadow fell upon his foot, and
the tic-bird that came and sat near you. I remember it all."

"Sure