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Updated: September 12, 2025
"Yes, the hen is always worth more than the chicks," Sisa herself answered when she observed that the soldiers were silent. "Where's the sergeant?" asked one of the guards in a disgusted tone. "Has report been made to the alferez yet?" A general shrugging of shoulders was his answer, for no one was going to trouble himself inquiring about the fate of a poor woman.
Raising her eyes, she saw a twisted remnant from Basilio's camisa at the end of the bamboo post in the dinding, or wall, that overlooked the precipice. She seized and examined it in the sunlight. There were blood stains on it, but Sisa hardly saw them, for she went outside and continued to raise and lower it before her eyes to examine it in the burning sunlight.
A sad smile lighted up her face as she recalled a funny riddle about the pot and the fire which Crispin had once propounded to her. The boy said: "The black man sat down and the red man looked at him, a moment passed, and cock-a-doodle-doo rang forth." Sisa was still young, and it was plain that at one time she had been pretty and attractive.
Full of hope, she had cooked the whitest of rice, which she herself had gleaned from the threshing-floors. It was indeed a curate's meal for the poor boys. But by an unfortunate chance her husband came and ate the rice, the slices of wild boar's meat, the duck leg, five of the little fishes, and the tomatoes. Sisa said nothing, although she felt as if she herself were being eaten.
In the centre of this plain was another large koppie of which the river Ukufa, or Death, washed one side. Around this koppie, amid a certain area of cultivated land, stood the "town" of the Christian branch of the Sisa.
Here the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the Chief and some of the Christian portion of the Sisa tribe, who having been warned of its approach by messenger, to the number of a hundred and fifty or so had advanced to meet the party. They were a motley crowd clad in every kind of garment, ranging from a moth-eaten General's tunic to practically nothing at all.
At last Sisa reached her hut and entered it in silence, She walked all about it and ran in and out for a time. Then she hurried to old Tasio's house and knocked at the door, but he was not at home. The unhappy woman then returned to her hut and began to call loudly for Basilio and Crispin, stopping every few minutes to listen attentively.
She then caught Sisa with one hand and, whipping her with the other, began to dance about. The crazy woman at last understood and followed the example by swinging her arms about awkwardly. A smile of satisfaction curled the lips of her teacher, the smile of a female Mephistopheles who succeeds in getting a great pupil.
Sisa covered her ears and opened her mouth to speak, but her lips moved without giving out any sound. "A pretty pair of sons you have!" exclaimed the cook. "It's plain that you're a faithful wife, the sons are so like the father. Take care that the younger doesn't surpass him." Sisa broke out into bitter weeping and let herself fall upon a bench. "Don't cry here!" yelled the cook.
Sisa broke out into bitter weeping, but those men were inflexible. "At least, let me go ahead of you some distance," she begged, when she felt them take hold of her brutally and push her along. The soldiers seemed to be somewhat affected and, after whispering apart, one of them said: "All right, since from here until we get into the town, you might be able to escape, you'll walk between us.
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