She crept to the door and made an opening in the branches with her fingers.
A large fire was blazing in the shadow, at the foot of the rocks. A little Bushman sat over some burning coals that had been raked from it, cooking meat. Stretched on the ground was an Englishman, dressed in a blouse, and with a heavy, sullen face. On the stone beside him was Dirk, the Hottentot, sharpening a bowie knife.
She held her breath. Not a cony in all the rocks was so still.
“They can never find me here,” she said; and she knelt, and listened to every word they said. She could hear it all.
“You may have all the money,” said the Bushman; “but I want the cask of brandy. I will set the roof alight in six places, for a Dutchman burnt my mother once alive in a hut, with three children.”
“You are sure there is no one else on the farm?” said the navvy.
“No, I have told you till I am tired,” said Dirk; “The two Kaffirs have gone with the son to town; and the maids have gone to a dance; there is only the old man and the two women left.”
“But suppose,” said the navvy, “he should have the gun at his bedside, and loaded!”
“He never has,” said Dirk; “it hangs in the passage, and the cartridges too. He never thought when he bought it what work it was for! I only wish the little white girl was there still,” said Dirk; “but she is drowned. We traced her footmarks to the great pool that has no bottom.”
She listened to every word, and they talked on.