months. She sat with her hands clasped round her updrawn knees, and
her head grew heavy with the want of slumber, but she would not
sleep, though it was the hour of sleep. Some one might pass by and
steal her clothes, she thought, and how or when would she ever get
others?

When the skirt was quite dried, the blood stains still showed on it;
they were no longer red, but looked like the marks from the sand. She
tied it on round her waist and her shirt over it, and wound an old
crimson sash round both. Then she took up her little bundle in which
were the wooden cup and a broken comb, and some pieces of hempen
cloth and a small loaf of maize bread, and went on along the water,
wading and hopping in it, as the water-wagtails did, jumping from
stone to stone, and sometimes sinking up to her knees in a hole.

She had no idea where she would rest at night, or where she would get
anything to eat; but that reflection scarcely weighed on her; she
slept well enough under stacks or in outhouses, and she was used to
hunger. So long as no one meddled with her she was content. The
weather was fine and the country was quiet. Only she was sorry for
the dead ram. By this time they would have hung him up by his heels
to a tree, and have pulled the skin off his body.

She was sorry; but she jumped along merrily in the water, as a
kingfisher does, and scarcely even wondered where its course would
lead her.

At a bend in it she came to a spot where a young man was seated
amongst the bulrushes, watching his fishing net.