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Here the Bible closed with a tremendous thud. Tant Sannie loosened the white handkerchief about her neck and wiped her eyes, and the coloured girl, seeing her do so, sniffled. The did not understand the discourse, which made it the more affecting. There hung over it that inscrutable charm which hovers forever for the human intellect over the incomprehensible and shadowy.
Then he drew himself up, and prepared to act his important part with becoming gravity. Soon Waldo stood in the door, and took off his hat. "Come in, come in, my lad," said Bonaparte, "and shut the door behind." The boy came in and stood before them. "You need not be so afraid, child," said Tant Sannie. "I was a child myself once. It's no great harm if you have taken a few."
"Nineteen, weak eyes, white hair, little round nose," said the maid. "Then it's he! then it's he!" said Tant Sannie triumphantly; "little Piet Vander Walt, whose wife died last month two farms, twelve thousand sheep. I've not seen him, but my sister-in-law told me about him, and I dreamed about him last night."
There were three candles burning in the room, and he and Tant Sannie sat close together, with the lean Hottentot not far off; for when ghosts are about much light is needed, there is great strength in numbers.
The coloured woman having duly inspected him, dashed into the dwelling. "Here is another one!" she cried "a widower; I see it by his hat." "Good Lord!" said Tant Sannie; "it's the seventh I've had this month; but the men know where sheep and good looks and money in the bank are to be found," she added, winking knowingly. "How does he look?"
The young man looked chilly, and said nothing. "Won't you put your feet on my stove?" said Tant Sannie. "No thank you, aunt," said the young man, and both lapsed into silence. At last Tant Sannie, afraid of going to sleep, tapped a strong cup of coffee for herself and handed another to her lover. This visibly revived both. "How long were you married, cousin?" "Ten months, aunt."
"He can give you more than you have lost." "I do, I do!" he cried; "but oh, I have no wife! I have no wife!" Tant Sannie was much affected, and came and stood near the bed. "Ask him if he won't have a little pap nice, fine, flour pap. There is some boiling on the kitchen fire." The German made the proposal, but the widower waved his hand. "No, nothing shall pass my lips. I should be suffocated.
Learning that there were, he made signs indicative of taking up armfuls and flinging them into the fire. But Tant Sannie was dubious. The deceased Englishman had left all his personal effects specially to his child. It was all very well for Bonaparte to talk of burning the books. He had had his hair spiritually pulled, and she had no wish to repeat his experience. She shook her head.
In the farmhouse, on her great wooden bedstead, Tant Sannie, the Boer-woman, rolled heavily in her sleep. She had gone to bed, as she always did, in her clothes, and the night was warm and the room close, and she dreamed bad dreams.
The Hottentot maid who acted as interpreter between Tant Sannie and himself was gone, and Tant Sannie herself was in bed. "Never mind, Bon, my boy," he said, as he walked round to his own room, "tomorrow will do. He, he, he!" At four o'clock the next afternoon the German rode across the plain, returning from his search for the lost sheep.
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