Marais rose in a resigned fashion, for he never deigned to argue with Vrouw Prinsloo, who was too many for him, and said:
“Farewell, Marie. If I do not return, you will remember my wishes, and my will may be found between the first leaves of our Holy Book. Get up, Klaus, and guide me to your master,” and he administered a somewhat vicious kick to the gorged and prostrate Hottentot.
Now Marie, who all this while had stood silent, touched me on the shoulder and said:
“Allan, is it well that my father should go alone? Will you not accompany him?”
“Of course,” I answered cheerfully; “on such a business there should be two, and some Kaffirs also to carry the man, if he still lives.”
Now for the end of the story. As the Hottentot Klaus was too exhausted to move that night, it was arranged that we should start at dawn. Accordingly, I rose before the light, and was just finishing my breakfast when Marie appeared at the wagon in which I slept. I got up to greet her, and, there being no one in sight, we kissed each other several times.
“Have done, my heart,” she said, pushing me away. “I come to you from my father, who is sick in his stomach and would see you.”
“Which means that I shall have to go after your cousin alone,” I replied with indignant emphasis.
She shook her head, and led me to the little shanty in which she slept. Here by the growing light, that entered through the doorway for it had no window, I perceived Marais seated upon a wooden stool with his hands pressed on his middle and groaning.
“Good morning, Allan,” he said in a melancholy voice; “I am ill, very ill, something that I have eaten perhaps, or a chill in the stomach, such as often precedes fever or dysentery.”