ghastly tale seemed to be beyond comment. They never doubted its truth;
the man's way of telling it carried conviction with it; indeed, two of
them at any rate had heard such stories before. Most people have who
live in the wilder parts of South Africa, though they are not all to be
taken for gospel.

"You say," remarked old Silas at last, "that the Englishwoman said that
a curse would fall on them, and that they would die in blood? She was
right. Twelve years ago _Oom_ Jacob and his wife were murdered by a
party of Mapoch's Kafirs down on the edge of that very Lydenburg veldt.
There was a great noise about it at the time, I remember, but nothing
came of it. Baas Frank was not there. He was away shooting buck, so he
escaped, and inherited all his father's farms and cattle, and came to
live here."

"So!" said the Hottentot, without showing the slightest interest or
surprise. "I knew it would be so, but I wish I had been there to see it.
I saw that there was a devil in the woman, and that they would die as
she said. When there is a devil in people they always speak the truth,
because they can't help it. Look, Baas, I draw a circle in the sand with
my foot, and I say some words so, and at last the ends touch. There,
that is the circle of _Oom_ Jacob and his wife the Englishwoman. The
ends have touched and they are dead. An old witch-doctor taught me how
to draw the circle of a man's life and what words to say. And now I draw
another of Baas Frank. Ah! there is a stone sticking up in the way. The
ends will not touch. But now I work and work and work with my foot, and
say the words and say the words, and so--the stone comes up and the ends
touch now. Thus it is with Baas Frank. One day the stone will come up
and the ends will touch, and he too will die in blood. The devil in
the Englishwoman said so, and devils cannot lie or speak half the truth