"So much the better for you and me, Miss Bessie. We can have a pleasant
talk. Where is that black monkey Jantje? Here, Jantje, take my horse,
you ugly devil, and mind you look after him, or I'll cut the liver out
of you!"

Jantje took the horse, with a forced grin of appreciation at the joke,
and led him off to the stable.

"I don't think that Jantje likes you, _Meinheer_ Muller," said Bessie,
spitefully, "and I do not wonder at it if you talk to him like that. He
told me the other day that he had known you for twenty years," and she
looked at him inquiringly.

This casual remark produced a strange effect on her visitor, who turned
colour beneath his tanned skin.

"He lies, the black hound," he said, "and I'll put a bullet through him
if he says it again! What should I know about him, or he about me? Can
I keep count of every miserable man-monkey I meet?" and he muttered a
string of Dutch oaths into his long beard.

"Really, _Meinheer!_" said Bessie.

"Why do you always call me '_Meinheer_'?" he asked, turning so fiercely
on her that she started back a step. "I tell you I am not a Boer. I
am an Englishman. My mother was English; and besides, thanks to Lord
Carnarvon, we are all English now."

"I don't see why you should mind being thought a Boer," she said coolly: