He obeyed, and put it into her hand.
“That knife would kill a man, Jantje,”
she said.
“Yes, yes,” he answered: “no
doubt it has killed many men.”
“It would kill Frank Muller, now, would it not?”
she went on, suddenly bending forward and fixing her
dark eyes upon the little man’s jaundiced orbs.
“Yah, yah,” he said starting back, “it
would kill him dead. Ah! what a thing it would
be to kill him!” he added, making a fierce sound,
half grunt, half laugh.
“He killed your father, Jantje.”
“Yah, yah, he killed my father,” said
Jantje, his eyes beginning to roll with rage.
“He killed your mother.”
“Yah, he killed my mother,” he repeated
after her with eager ferocity.
“And your uncle. He killed your uncle.”
“And my uncle too,” he went on, shaking
his fist and twitching his long toes as his hoarse
voice rose to a subdued scream. “But he
will die in blood—the old Englishwoman,
his mother, said it when the devil was in her, and
the devils never lie. Look! I draw Baas Frank’s
circle in the dust with my foot; and listen, I say
the words—I say the words,” and he
muttered something rapidly; “an old, old witch-doctor
taught me how to do it, and what to say. Once
before I did it, and there was a stone in the circle,
now there is no stone: look, the ends meet.
He will die in blood; he will die soon.
I know how to read the omen;” and he gnashed
his teeth and sawed the air with his clenched fists.
“Yes, you are right, Jantje,” she said,
still holding him with her dark eyes. “He
will die in blood, and he will die to-night, and you
will kill him, Jantje.”
The Hottentot started, and turned pale under his yellow
skin.
“How?” he said; “how?”
“Bend forward, Jantje, and I will tell you how;”
and Jess whispered for some minutes into his ear.
“Yes! yes! yes!” he said when she had
done. “Oh, what a fine thing it is to be
clever like the white people! I will kill him
to-night, and then I can cut out the notches, and
the spooks of my father and my mother and my uncle
will stop howling round me in the dark as they do now,
when I am asleep.”
VENGEANCE
For three or four minutes more Jess and Jantje whispered
together, after which the Hottentot rose and crept
away to find out what was passing among the Boers
below, and watch when Frank Muller retired to his tent.
So soon as he had marked him down it was agreed that
he was to come back and report to Jess.
