“Hendrika Van Staden, why should you come to me now?” he said. “All was over between us, you said; and I wanted to see your face no more. I have scarcely enough water for myself and my men for another day. My oxen may not be back, the Lord knows when! In these times one must look after oneself. Your husband will be back by morning, no doubt, and your boy can wait till then. No, I cannot help you. Allemaghte! why should I, indeed? All my troubles come from you. You have treated me scurvily in the past; my turn has come now!”
The last few days of suffering and disaster—for he had already lost heavily among his cattle—seemed to have changed the man’s nature. All his evil impulses had come uppermost.
Hendrika argued, pleaded, threatened, cast away her pride and implored Oosthuysen, by all the memories of their youth together, to help her, even with a beaker or two of water. But all of no avail. The Boer sat grim, obstinate, ferocious, and would not be moved.
In despair she sought her wagon again. A terrible night followed. Barend was awake long before the light with raging thirst in his throat. The mother bathed his hands and brow with vinegar, moistened his lips with it, did all she could to soothe and comfort him: it was of slight avail. The fever increased; the poor sufferer’s cries for water were incessant. What Hendrika went through during that dreadful night no pen can tell. The desert was a hell; the stars above mocked her; the moon gleamed in contemptuous serenity; the airs whispering through the bush passed idly by, tittering their light gossip one to another. Where was God, that He could let her child suffer so? Surely, surely, all the Predikants and the Doppers and the rest of them were wrong! There could be no God, and the Bible was a lie! Sometimes, when Barend fell asleep for a few minutes, she prayed and wrestled with her agony, and fifty times sprang up thinking she heard her husband’s approach.
At dawn Oosthuysen was stirring, and got down from his kartel. Hendrika had been watching like a hawk for this. She hurried swiftly across, and in rapid sentences told him of her child’s danger. She fell on her knees before him—this proud, beautiful, strong woman, whose boast had been that she could have had every Boer of the Transvaal at her feet—and begged him in a flood of tears to give her some water and save her child. At this moment, even after these scores of hours of fatigue and thirst and bitter suffering, and under the grey morning light, the woman looked very beautiful, worn and dishevelled though she was. Her kapje was off, and her golden hair, unfettered by the usual tight Dutch cap, crowned her with a strange glory.
The Boer was visibly moved.
“Hendrika,” he whispered hoarsely, “I love you still. Yes, I love you more than ever. I will give you all the water I have. Allemaghte! Yes, I’ll foot it without water to Inkouane if you will leave your husband and come away with me. We can trek far to the north and make a home of our own. Come, Hendrika! After we reach Inkouane, your husband will be behind for his cattle, and we can get away; and if you like, bring the boy too. There is the water,” pointing under his wagon, “nearly a vatjeful; you shall have it all. Think well of what I say. We have been happy before, and can be happy again.”
Hendrika sprang to her feet with flashing eyes.
“You must be mad,” she said, with fierce scorn, “to dream of such a thing! Can you think so ill of me? No, schelm, scoundrel that you are, you know you cannot! Is this your final answer. Do you still refuse me water?”
“I do,” he returned; “unless...”