The Boer and his _vrouw_ treated the children fairly well, but they did not do one thing more than they bargained for.

At the turn from the Wakkerstroom road, that you came along to-day, they put the girls down, for they had no luggage with them, and told them that if they went along there they would come to _Meinheer_ Croft's house.

That was in the middle of the afternoon, and they were till eight o'clock getting here, poor little dears, for the track was fainter then than it is now, and they wandered off into the veldt, and would have perished there in the wet and cold had they not chanced to see the lights of the house.

That was how my nieces came here, Captain Niel, and here they have been ever since, except for a couple of years when I sent them to the Cape for schooling, and a lonely man I was when they were away." "And how about the father ?" asked John Niel, deeply interested.

"Did you ever hear any more of him ?" "Hear of him, the villain!" almost shouted the old man, jumping up in wrath.