“So be it,” said the commandant.  “Now, do all you who have heard those words take note of them.”

Then Hans, seeing that the council was about to break up, and fearing lest he should be caught and killed, slipped away by the same road that he had come.  His thought was to warn me, but this he could not do because of the guards.  So he went to the Prinsloos, and finding the vrouw alone with Marie, who had recovered her mind, told them everything that he had heard.

As he said, Marie knelt down and prayed, or thought for a long while, then rose and spoke.

“Tante,” she said to the vrouw, “one thing is clear, that Allan will be murdered at the dawn; now if he is hidden away he may escape.”

“But where and how can we hide him,” asked the vrouw, “seeing that the place is guarded?”

“Tante,” said Marie again, “at the back of your house is an old cattle kraal made by Kaffirs, and in that cattle kraal, as I have seen, there are mealie-pits where those Kaffirs stored their grain.  Now I suggest that we should put my husband into one of those mealie-pits and cover it over.  There the Boers might not find him, however close they searched.”

“That is a good idea,” said the vrouw; “but how in the name of God are we to get Allan out of a guarded house into a mealie-pit?”

“Tante, I have a right to go to my husband’s house, and there I will go.  Afterwards, too, I shall have the right to leave his house before he is taken away.  Well, he might leave it in my place, as me, and you and Hans might help him.  Then in the morning the Boers would come to search the house and find no one except me.”

“That is all very pretty,” answered the vrouw; “but do you think, my niece, that those accursed vultures will go away until they have picked Allan’s bones?  Not they, for too much hangs on it.  They will know that he cannot be far off, and slink about the place until they have found him in his mealie-hole or until he comes out.  It is blood they are after, thanks to your cousin Hernan, the liar, and blood they will have for their own safety’s sake.  Never will they go away from here until they see Allan lying dead upon the ground.”

Now, according to Hans, Marie thought again very deeply.  Then she answered: 

“There is a great risk, tante; but we must take it.  Send your husband to chat with those guards, and give him a bottle of spirits.  I will talk with Hans here and see what can be arranged.”

So Marie went aside with Hans, as he told me afterwards, and asked him if he knew of any medicine that made people sleep for a long while without waking.  He answered, Yes; all the coloured people had plenty of such medicine.  Without doubt he could get some from the Kaffirs who dwelt upon the place, or if not he could dig the roots of a plant that he had seen growing near by which would serve the purpose.  So she sent him to procure this stuff.  Afterwards she spoke to the Vrouw Prinsloo, saying: