"'But you will not start again tonight!' I cried, for it was already the thin end of evening, and he was taking off his clean clothes.
"'A thousand dozen is a big handful,' he answered, smiling.
'There's nothing like getting a grip on the work ahead.'
"So in a few minutes he was down in the water again, and the mud flew as he worked at the heart-breaking task he had taken upon him. After all, the ragout was expensive to make. It came dearer than we expected.
"Late into the night he held on, though thrice I went out to the bank of the stream to beg him to quit it and come to bed. There was a great pale moon that night, which threw up the colors of things strongly, and I have yet in my mind— and my heart—that picture,—the stained water, and the bank of gray mud over it, and between the two my Kornel bent over the endless boxes, vehemently working with no consideration for the limits of his strength. His arms gleamed with the wet, and were ceaseless; he might have been a dumb machine, without capacity for weariness. If he had toiled before, now he toiled doubly; there was a trouble in his mind to be sweated out and a debt of money to be repaid. And also, like a peril always near at hand, there was the thin margin that stood between us and starvation.
"When he came to bed at length, he lay down without the greeting he was wont to give me—lapsed into his place beside me with the limpness of a man spent to the utmost ounce. He slept without turning on his side, his worn hands, half-closed, lying loosely on the quilt. Yet within an hour after daylight he rose with narrow, sleep-burdened eyes, fumbled into his clothes, and staggered out to the spruit again, to resume his merciless work with the very fever of energy. The Kafirs that worked leisurely on the next plot stopped to look at him and to wonder at the speed with which the rows of drying bricks lengthened and multiplied. I saw them pointing as I stood at the door, heavy-hearted and anxious, and envied the ease of their manner of life, and the simplicity that could be content with such work at such a wage. Yes, I have envied Kafirs, Katje; there are times for all women when we envy the dead.
"But it was the day after that that the trouble came upon us, great and violent and unawaited. Kornel had been up at daybreak again, working as strongly as ever, though his mouth was loose with the strain and his face very yellow and white. The drying and the dry bricks were lying on the ground in long rows, and some which were hard were already stacked to make room for others. It was a tremendous output for one man in the time it had taken; and when the Kafirs turned out, gabbling and laughing as usual, they stopped to look in surprise at our plot and the great quantity of bricks. They gathered in a group, and talked among themselves and pointed, and presently I was aware there was something toward. One of them in particular,—a great brown brute, with bulky shoulders and huge arms, seemed to be concerned in the affair; he stared continually towards Kornel, and talked loudly, his voice running up into the squeak of a Kafir when he is excited, or angry, or afraid; and presently he stepped over our border line and walked down to the bricks. He was jabbering to himself all the time as he stooped and picked up bricks and examined them closely, and glanced down to the spruit where Kornel was still working.
"I watched him, but I said nothing, hoping he would go away before Kornel saw him; but he kept on, and presently my man looked up.
"He saw the Kafir at once, and climbed up the bank pretty quickly. There was something like a smile on his face, a look as though he had found the relief he needed. He walked swiftly over to the Kafir.
"'What are you doing here?' he demanded, keeping his eyes unwinkingly on the staring eyes of the Kafir.
"The latter held a dried brick in his great paw, and now he thrust it forward and broke into a torrent of speech. He accused Kornel of having trespassed in the night and stolen the bricks of the Kafirs. No man, he said, could have made so many by himself, and then he began to call names. I shuddered and put my hands before my face, and took them down again in time to see Kornel's fist fly up and out, and the great Kafir reel back from a vicious blow in the face.