“Run away!” I said.  “Why, that would be to confess myself guilty, for only the guilty run away.  What I want is to have all this business thrashed out and that devil Pereira exposed.”

“But, Allan,” said Marie, “how if you should never live to have it thrashed out?  How if you should be shot first?” Then she rose, and having looked to see that the shutter-board was fast in the little window-place and the curtain that she had made of sacking drawn over it, returned and whispered:  “Hans here has heard a horrible tale, Allan.  Tell it to the baas, Hans.”

So while Vrouw Prinsloo, in order to deceive any prying eyes if such by chance could see us, busied herself with lighting a fire on the hearth in the second room on which to warm the food, Hans told his story much as it has already been set out.

I listened to it with growing incredulity.  The thing seemed to me impossible.  Either Hans was deceived or lying, the latter probably, for well I knew the Hottentot powers of imagination.  Or perhaps he was drunk; indeed, he smelt of liquor, of which I was aware he could carry a great quantity without outward signs of intoxication.

“I cannot believe it,” I said when he had finished.  “Even if Pereira is such a fiend, as is possible, would Henri Marais, your father—­who, at any rate, has always been a good and God-fearing man—­consent to work such a crime upon his daughter’s husband, though he does dislike him?”

“My father is not what he was, Allan,” said Marie.  “Sometimes I think that his brain has gone.”

“He did not speak like a man whose brain has gone this afternoon,” I replied.  “But let us suppose that this tale is true, what is it that you wish me to do?”

“Allan, I wish you to dress up in my clothes and get away to a hiding-place which Hans and the vrouw know, leaving me here instead of you.”

“Why, Marie?” I said.  “Then you might get yourself shot in my place, always supposing that they mean to shoot me.  Also I should certainly be caught and killed, as they would have a right to kill me for trying to escape in disguise.  That is a mad plan, and I have a better.  Vrouw Prinsloo, go straight to the commandant ad tell him all this story.  Or, if he will not listen to you, scream it out at the top of your voice so that everyone may hear, and then come back and tell us the result.  Of one thing I am sure, that if you do this, even if there was any thought of my being shot tomorrow morning, it will be abandoned.  You can refuse to say who told you the tale.”

“Yes, please do that,” muttered Hans, “else I know one who will be shot.”

“Good, I will go,” said the vrouw, and she went, the guards letting her pass after a few words which we could not hear.

Half an hour later she returned and called to us to open the door.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “I have failed, nephew.  Except those sentries outside the door, the commandant and all the Boers have ridden off, I know not where, taking our people with them.”