“Then go on your knees and thank Him yourself, Henri Marais,” screamed the irrepressible Vrouw Prinsloo.  “I give thanks for the safe return of Allan here, though it is true they would be warmer if he had left this stinkcat behind him.  Allemachte!  Henri Marais, why do you make so much of this Portuguese fellow?  Has he bewitched you?  Or is it because he is your sister’s son, or because you want to force Marie there to marry him?  Or is it, perhaps, that he knows of something bad in your past life, and you have to bribe him to keep his mouth shut?”

Now, whether this last unpleasant suggestion was a mere random arrow drawn from Vrouw Prinsloo’s well-stored quiver, or whether the vrouw had got hold of the tail-end of some long-buried truth, I do not know.  Of course, however, the latter explanation is possible.  Many men have done things in their youth which they do not wish to see dug up in their age; and Pereira may have learned a family secret of the kind from his mother.

At any rate, the effect of the old lady’s words upon Marais was quite remarkable.  Suddenly he went into one of his violent and constitutional rages.  He cursed Vrouw Prinsloo.  He cursed everybody else, assuring them severally and collectively that Heaven would come even with them.  He said there was a plot against him and his nephew, and that I was at the bottom of it, I who had made his daughter fond of my ugly little face.  So furious were his words, whereof there were many more which I have forgotten, that at length Marie began to cry and ran away.  Presently, too, the Boers strolled off, shrugging their shoulders, one of them saying audibly that Marais had gone quite mad at last, as he always thought he would.

Then Marais followed them, throwing up his arms and still cursing as he went, and, slipping over the tail of the pack-ox, Pereira followed him.  So the Vrouw Prinsloo and I were left alone, for the coloured men had departed, as they always do when white people begin to quarrel.

“There, Allan, my boy,” said the vrouw in triumph, “I have found the sore place on the mule’s back, and didn’t I make him squeal and kick, although on most days of the week he seems to be such a good and quiet mule—­at any rate, of late.”

“I dare say you did, vrouw,” I said wrathfully, “but I wish you would leave Mynheer Marais’s sore places alone, seeing that if the squeals are for you, the kicks are for me.”

“What does that matter, Allan?” she asked.  “He always was your enemy, so that it is just as well you should see his heels when you are out of reach of them.  My poor boy, I think you will have a bad time of it between the stinkcat and the mule, although you have done so much for both of them.  Well, there is one thing—­Marie has a true heart.  She will never marry any man except yourself, Allan—­even if you are not here to marry,” she added by an afterthought.

The old lady paused a little, staring at the ground.  Then she looked up and said: