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Maliwe had waited through these long years and how long are not the years under such circumstances? with a kind of contented impatience, and as time went by, the impatience waxed and the contentment waned. With the premonition of genuine love he had seen the budding woman of today in the child of three years ago. He had worked and waited. His reward was now near, and anticipation was sweet.
He then buried the remainder of the carcase, with the skin, in the loose, dry dung at the side of the kraal. Having done this he walked off quickly in the direction of the village. After leaving the hut, Maliwe climbed a rocky ridge, which rose steeply for about a hundred yards at the back of the kraal.
Gert Botha lifted the heavy sjambok which he usually carried, and struck the prisoner heavily over the bare head and face. A thick, grey wheal immediately followed the blow, but Maliwe did not even wince. "Jou verdomde parmantig schepsel," cried the irate Boer. "Ik neuk jou uit jou hartnakigheid." So Maliwe was marched, carrying the corpus delicti, in to the gaol.
On the comb of the ridge stood an immense boulder, and Maliwe spent the rest of the night sitting to lee-ward of this, Sibi, the dog, curled up at his feet, growling at intervals, and every now and then looking in the direction of the hut, which was, like the kraal, out of sight, with cars cocked and nostrils dilated.
Next morning, Gert Botha's son Andries shot him. Maliwe received his twenty-five lashes, and was discharged from prison, after his back had, under the superintendence of the District Surgeon, been well washed with brine, to prevent evil results. Neither under the flogging nor the pickling did Maliwe exhibit the slightest sign of the torture which he suffered.
It was a red bull with white face and feet he knew every mark, and one might almost say every hair on the animal, having looked at it so often. It was a remarkably fine calf, but Maliwe thought it took a strangely long time in growing up. He lit his pipe, and dreamt dreams. Soon he would be no longer alone in his hut. He loved the girl Nalai, and she seemed to love him, so the future was bright.
All this time Maliwe sat looking fixedly at the speaker, who, after a pause, continued: "My son Tentu wants a wife. I will go to Dalisile tomorrow and see whether seven fat oxen will not tempt him to return your three skinny cows, and send his daughter to my kraal across to Keiskamma, I have heard of Nalai, and I think she will suit Tentu; at my kraal she will never want milk."
So they went into the hut, and they refreshed the fire, and they talked, and they put some dry mealies to roast with fat in the three-legged pot, and they talked of Maliwe's relations, of old Dalisile, and of his daughter Nalai whom Maliwe was going to marry.
"Have you not got a little meat?" Maliwe stood up, and reaching to the roof of the hut, handed down the emaciated ribs of the goat. Kalaza took the meat, turned it over critically, and handed it back. "That is the meat of an old, tough goat," he said, "I could no more chew that than the mealies." "I am very sorry," replied Maliwe, "but I have none other."
A few minutes elapsed, and then Maliwe returned, carrying a young sheep with its throat cut on his shoulder. This he flung down on to the ground before Kalaza, saying: "Friend of my father, here is meat. Eat!" Maliwe then seized his stick, called Sibi the dog, and left the hut. Kalaza skinned the sheep, and eat about a third of the meat, selecting the choicest parts.
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