There, I swear it by God or by the Devil, it's all one to me!" And growing inarticulate with passion, he stood before her clinching and unclinching his great hand, and his lips trembling.
Bessie was very frightened; but she was a brave woman, and rose to the emergency.
"If you go on talking like that," she said, "I shall call my uncle.

I tell you that I will not marry you, Frank Muller, and that nothing shall ever make me marry you.

I am very sorry for you, but I have not encouraged you, and I will never marry you--never!" He stood for half a minute or so looking at her, and then burst into a savage laugh.
"I think that some day or other I shall find a way to make you," Muller said, and turning, he went without another word.
A couple of minutes later Bessie heard the sound of a horse galloping, and looking up she saw her wooer's powerful form vanishing down the vista of blue gums.

Also she heard somebody crying out as though in pain at the back of the house, and, more to relieve her mind than for any other reason, she went to see what it was.

By the stable door she found the Hottentot Jantje, shrieking, cursing and twisting round and round, his hand pressed to his side, from which the blood was running.
"What is it ?" she asked.
"Baas Frank!" he answered--"Baas Frank hit me with his whip!" "The brute!" said Bessie, the tears starting to her eyes with anger.
"Never mind, missie, never mind," gasped the Hottentot, his ugly face growing livid with fury, "it is only one more to me.