Could I take her away and put her under the protection of the Court at Pretoria?
Yes, but with the same result.

I wondered what my Hottentot retainer, Hans, would have advised, he who was named Light-in-Darkness, and in his own savage way was the cleverest and most cunning man that I have met.

Alas! I could not raise him from the grave to tell me, and yet I knew well what he would have answered.
"Baas," he would have said, "this is a rope which only the pale old man (i.e., death) can cut.

Let this doctor die or let the father die, and the maiden will be free.

Surely heaven is longing for one or both of them, and if necessary, Baas, I believe that I can point out a path to heaven!" I laughed to myself at the thought, which was one that a white man could not entertain even as a thought.