Go!" The Boer turned white with fury as he listened.

Twice he tried to speak and failed, and when the words did come they were so choked and laden with passion as to be scarcely audible.

When thwarted he was liable to these accesses to rage, and, speaking figuratively, they spoilt his character.

Could he have kept his head, he would have been a perfect and triumphant villain, but as it was, the carefully planned and audacious rascality of years was always apt to be swept away by the sudden gale of his furious passion.

It was in such an outburst of rage that he had assaulted John in the inn yard at Wakkerstroom, and thereby put him on his guard against him, and now it mastered him once more.
"Very well, Silas Croft," he said at last, "I will go; but mark this, I will come back, and when I come it shall be with men armed with rifles.
I will burn this pretty place of yours, that you are so proud of, over your head, and I will kill you and your friend the Englishman, and take Bessie away, and very soon she shall be glad enough to marry Frank Muller; but then I will not marry her--no, not if she goes on her knees to me--and she shall go on her knees often enough.