from her decks."

"Well, and then?"

"And then, nothing. Almighty! that is all the tale. Those waves which
you love to watch can tell the rest."

"Most like it is some Kaffir lie, husband."

"May be, but amongst these people news travels faster than a good horse,
and before now there have been wrecks upon this coast. Child, put down
that gun. Do you want to shoot your mother? Have I not told you that you
must never touch a gun?" and he pointed to Suzanne, who had picked up
her father's _roer_--for in those days, when we lived among so many
Kaffirs, every man went armed--and was playing at soldiers with it.

"I was shooting buck and Kaffirs, papa," she said, obeying him with a
pout.

"Shooting Kaffirs, were you? Well, there will be a good deal of that to
do before all is finished in this land, little one. But it is not work
for girls; you should have been a boy, Suzanne."

"I can't; I am a girl," she answered; "and I haven't any brothers like
other girls. Why haven't I any brothers?"

Jan shrugged his shoulders, and looked at me.

"Won't the sea bring me a brother?" went on the child, for she had been
told that little children came out of the sea.