Such a ghastly tale seemed to be beyond comment.

They never doubted its truth; the man's way of telling it carried conviction with it; indeed, two of them at any rate had heard such stories before.

Most people have who live in the wilder parts of South Africa, though they are not all to be taken for gospel.
"You say," remarked old Silas at last, "that the Englishwoman said that a curse would fall on them, and that they would die in blood?
She was right.

Twelve years ago _Oom_ Jacob and his wife were murdered by a party of Mapoch's Kafirs down on the edge of that very Lydenburg veldt.
There was a great noise about it at the time, I remember, but nothing came of it.

Baas Frank was not there.