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Updated: May 26, 2025
On the third night of his illness the husband of Swallow was alive and doing well; the Heer Jan Botmar was not wounded at all, and as for the Vrouw Botmar, never in her life did she drink anything stronger than coffee, for the white man's firewater is poison to her.
So we were married, and within the week, for, all my protestations notwithstanding, the Vrouw Botmar would suffer no delay. Moreover, by means of some other interpreter, Ralph, playing traitor, secretly brought my arguments to nothing, and indeed there was a cause for hurry, for just then his regiment was ordered to return to England.
To begin at the beginning, my husband, Jan Botmar, is one of the well-known Boer family of that name, the most of whom lived in the Graafreinet district in the Old Colony till some of them trekked into the Transkei, when I was still a young girl, to be as far as they could from the heart of the British power. Nor did they trek for a little reason. Listen and judge.
Well, among all these suitors I favoured Jan Botmar, the old cripple who sits yonder, though in those days he was no cripple but the properest man a girl could wish to see.
Outside the open door of the church the waggon was halted, and from it the Vrouw Botmar witnessed the ceremony, causing the register to be brought to her to sign. This she did, resting the book upon the head of the Kaffir driver, down whose back she managed to upset the ink. "Never mind," she said, not the least disturbed, "it cannot make the poor creature any blacker than he is."
As for you, Ralph, you are a bigger fool, for you think that Jan Botmar, your foster-father here, desires to be rid of you when in truth he only seeks your good to his own sore loss. As for you, Suzanne, you are the biggest fool of all, for you wish to fly in everybody's face, like a cat with her first litter of kittens; but there, what is the use of arguing with a girl in love?
"Lady, I am telling it," he answered. "Fool!" exclaimed Sihamba. "Say now, did you find the Baas Kenzie and the Baas Botmar?" "No, indeed," he replied, "for they were gone." "Gone where? Were they alive and well?" "Yes, yes, they were alive and well, but all the Boers in those parts have trekked, and they trekked also, believing the lady Swallow to be dead."
Now, yonder witch and cattle-thief has richly earned her doom, yet, because you ask it, Suzanne Botmar, I am ready to withdraw the prosecution against her, and to destroy the written record of it in my hand, on two conditions, of which the first is that she pays over to me by way of compensation for what she has stolen, all her cattle and other belongings. Do you consent to that, witch?"
Now Piet sat up and stared at him stupidly, but he made no effort to renew the fight, whereon Ralph gasped: "I promised you a flogging, but since it is chance that has conquered you more than I, I will take no advantage of it, save this " and he struck him once or twice across the face with the whip, but not so as to draw blood, and added, "Now, at least, I am free from a certain promise that I made that I would not kill you and should you attempt further harm or insult towards Suzanne Botmar, kill you I will, Piet van Vooren."
The slaves gave me meal and some flesh with it, and I learned in talk with them that the Heer Botmar, his vrouw, his daughter Suzanne and the young Englishman, Heer Kenzie, all rode away yesterday to the christening party of the first-born of the Heer Roozen, who lives about five hours on horseback to the north yonder.
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