Unlike most Boers of similar descent, these particular Marais—­for, of course, there are many other families so called—­never forgot their origin.  Indeed, from father to son, they kept up some knowledge of the French tongue, and among themselves often spoke it after a fashion.  At any rate, it was the habit of Henri Marais, who was excessively religious, to read his chapter of the Bible (which it is, or was, the custom of the Boers to spell out every morning, should their learning allow them to do so), not in the “taal” or patois Dutch, but in good old French.  I have the very book from which he used to read now, for, curiously enough, in after years, when all these events had long been gathered to the past, I chanced to buy it among a parcel of other works at the weekly auction of odds and ends on the market square of Maritzburg.  I remember that when I opened the great tome, bound over the original leather boards in buckskin, and discovered to whom it had belonged, I burst into tears.  There was no doubt about it, for, as was customary in old days, this Bible had sundry fly-leaves sewn up with it for the purpose of the recording of events important to its owner.

The first entries were made by the original Henri Marais, and record how he and his compatriots were driven from France, his father having lost his life in the religious persecutions.  After this comes a long list of births, marriages and deaths continued from generation to generation, and amongst them a few notes telling of such matters as the change of the dwelling-places of the family, always in French.  Towards the end of the list appears the entry of the birth of the Henri Marais whom I knew, alas! too well, and of his only sister.  Then is written his marriage to Marie Labuschagne, also, be it noted, of the Huguenot stock.  In the next year follows the birth of Marie Marais, my Marie, and, after a long interval, for no other children were born, the death of her mother.  Immediately below appears the following curious passage: 

“Le 3 Janvier, 1836.  Je quitte ce pays voulant me sauver du maudit gouvernement Britannique comme mes ancetres se sont sauves de ce diable—­Louis XIV.

“A bas les rois et les ministres tyrannique!  Vive la liberte!”

Which indicates very clearly the character and the opinions of Henri Marais, and the feeling among the trek-Boers at that time.

Thus the record closes and the story of the Marais ends—­that is, so far as the writings in the Bible go, for that branch of the family is now extinct.

Their last chapter I will tell in due course.

There was nothing remarkable about my introduction to Marie Marais.  I did not rescue her from any attack of a wild beast or pull her out of a raging river in a fashion suited to romance.  Indeed, we interchanged our young ideas across a small and extremely massive table, which, in fact, had once done duty as a block for the chopping up of meat.  To this hour I can see the hundreds of lines running criss-cross upon its surface, especially those opposite to where I used to sit.