Moreover, the father has really gained nothing except a sick heart and
much bad luck to come."

"Why much bad luck to come, Hans?" I asked idly, for his naive summing
up of the case interested me in a vague way.

"Oh! Baas Allan, for two reasons. First, your reverend father, who made
me true Christian, told him so, and a predicant so good as he, is one
down whom the curse of God runs from Heaven like lightning runs down a
tree. Well, the Heer Marais was sitting under that tree, and we all
know what happens to him who is under a tree when the lightning strikes
it. That my first Christian reason. My second black-man reason, about
which there can be no mistake, for it has always been true since there
was a black man, is that the girl is yours by blood. You saved her life
with your blood," and he pointed to my leg, "and therefore bought her
for ever, for blood is more than cattle. Therefore, too, he who would
divide her from you brings blood on her and on the other man who tries
to steal her, blood, blood! and on himself I know not what." And he
waved his yellow arms, staring up at me with his little black eyes in a
way that was most uncanny.

"Nonsense!" I said. "Why do you talk such bad words?"

"Because they are true words, Baas Allan. Oh, you laugh at the poor
Totty; but I had it from my father, and he from his father from
generation to generation, amen, and you will see. You will see, as I
have seen before now, and as the Heer Marais will see, who, if the great
God had not made him mad--for mad he is, baas, as we know, if you Whites
don't--might have lived in his home till he was old, and have had a good
son-in-law to bury him in his blanket."