Just then a small fat woman put her head out of a tent pitched by the waggon, and inquired what the matter was. She was the giant’s wife. On being informed of the straying of the ox, her wrath knew no bounds.
“Slaat em! slaat de swartsel!” (Thrash him! thrash the black creature!) she cried out in a shrill voice, running to the waggon, and with her own fair hands drawing out a huge “sjambock,” that is, a strip of prepared hippopotamus-hide, used to drive the after-oxen with, and giving it to her spouse. “Cut the liver out of the black devil!” she went on, “but mind you don’t hit his head, or he won’t be able to go to work afterwards. Never mind about making the blood come! I have got lots of salt to rub in.”
Her harangue, and the sight of the Hottentot tied to the wheel, had by this time attracted quite a crowd of Boers and Englishmen who were idling about the market-square.
“Softly, Vrouw, softly; I will thrash enough to satisfy even you, and we all know that must be very hard where a black creature is in question.”
A roar of laughter from the Dutch people round greeted this sally of wit, and the giant, taking the sjambock with a good-humoured smile—for, like most giants, he was easy-tempered by nature—lifted it, whirled his great arm, thick as the leg of an average man, round his head, and brought the whip down on the back of the miserable Hottentot. The poor wretch yelled with pain, and no wonder, for the greasy old shirt he wore was divided clean in two, together with the skin beneath it, and the blood was pouring from the gash.
“Allamachter! dat is een lecker slaat” (Almighty! that was a nice one), said the old woman; at which the crowd laughed again.
But there was one man who did not laugh, and that man was Jeremy. On the contrary, his clear eyes flashed and his brown cheek burned with indignation. Nor did he stop at that. Stepping forward, he placed himself between the giant and the howling Hottentot, and said to the former, in the most nervous English:
“You are a damned coward!”
The Boer stared at him and smiled, and then, turning, asked what the “English fellow” was saying. Somebody translated Jeremy’s remark, whereupon the Boer, who was not a bad-natured fellow, smiled again, and remarked that Jeremy must be madder than the majority of “accursed Englishmen.” Then he turned to continue thrashing the Hottentot, but, lo! the mad Englishman was still there. This put the Dutchman out.
“Footsack, carl; ik is Van Zyl!” (Get out, fellow; I am Van Zyl!) This was interpreted to Jeremy by the by-standers.