What I want is to have all this business thrashed out and that devil Pereira exposed." "But, Allan," said Marie, "how if you should never live to have it thrashed out?
How if you should be shot first ?" Then she rose, and having looked to see that the shutter-board was fast in the little window-place and the curtain that she had made of sacking drawn over it, returned and whispered: "Hans here has heard a horrible tale, Allan.
Tell it to the baas, Hans." So while Vrouw Prinsloo, in order to deceive any prying eyes if such by chance could see us, busied herself with lighting a fire on the hearth in the second room on which to warm the food, Hans told his story much as it has already been set out.
I listened to it with growing incredulity.

The thing seemed to me impossible.

Either Hans was deceived or lying, the latter probably, for well I knew the Hottentot powers of imagination.

Or perhaps he was drunk; indeed, he smelt of liquor, of which I was aware he could carry a great quantity without outward signs of intoxication.
"I cannot believe it," I said when he had finished.

"Even if Pereira is such a fiend, as is possible, would Henri Marais, your father--who, at any rate, has always been a good and God-fearing man--consent to work such a crime upon his daughter's husband, though he does dislike him ?" "My father is not what he was, Allan," said Marie.