“Yes, yes,” said Bonaparte, leaning back in his chair, to her great relief, and pressing his hands on his heart, “since first thy amethystine countenance was impressed here—what have I not suffered, what have I not felt? Oh, the pangs unspoken, burning as an ardent coal in a fiery and uncontaminated bosom!” said Bonaparte, bending forward again.
“Dear Lord!” said Trana to herself, “how foolish I have been! The old man has a pain in his stomach, and now, as my aunt is out, he has come to me to help him.”
She smiled kindly at Bonaparte, and pushing past him, went to the bedroom, quickly returning with a bottle of red drops in her hand.
“They are very good for benauwdheid; my mother always drinks them,” she said, holding the bottle out.
The face in the trap-door was a fiery red. Like a tiger-cat ready to spring. Tant Sannie crouched, with the shoulder of mutton in her hand. Exactly beneath her stood Bonaparte. She rose and clasped with both arms the barrel of salt meat.
“What, rose of the desert, nightingale of the colony, that with thine amorous lay whilest the lonesome night!” cried Bonaparte, seizing the hand that held the vonlicsense. “Nay, struggle not! Fly as a stricken fawn into the arms that would embrace thee, thou—”
Here a stream of cold pickle-water, heavy with ribs and shoulders, descending on his head abruptly terminated his speech. Half-blinded, Bonaparte looked up through the drops that hung from his eyelids, and saw the red face that looked down at him. With one wild cry he fled. As he passed out at the front door a shoulder of mutton, well-directed, struck the black coat in the small of the back.
“Bring the ladder! bring the ladder! I will go after him!” cried the Boer-woman, as Bonaparte Blenkins wildly fled into the fields.
Late in the evening of the same day Waldo knelt on the floor of his cabin. He bathed the foot of his dog which had been pierced by a thorn. The bruises on his own back had had five days to heal in, and, except a little stiffness in his movements, there was nothing remarkable about the boy.