"'Very well,' he said, 'if you cannot make the cheese the Kafir woman shall do it. And you shall do her work at the churn-handle. I want no idlers in my house.'
"And there he had her at the churn, grinding like a Kafir, for three days in every week, a white woman and his wife. Once she came to him and held out her hands.
"'Look,' she said. That was all: 'look!'
"Her fingers and her palms were flayed and raw and oozed blood, but he simply glanced at them.
"'You should have learned to work before,' was all his answer. 'Every one pays for learning, and you pay late. Go back to the churn.'
"The next thing', of course, was that she was missing, but Jan Uys was not troubled. He mounted his horse and rode out along the Drifts Road, going quietly, with his pipe alight. It was the road by which he had brought her from her home, and he knew the girl would try to go to her mother. In a few miles he picked up her spoor, and found some of the sole of one of her shoes. A mimosa carried a shred of her dress, and in another place she had sat down. As he went farther, he found she had sat down in many places.
"'Good,' he said. 'She is tired, and soon I shall catch her.'
"He came up with her twenty miles along the road, sitting down again. Her hair was all about her shoulders, and her face was white, with the great eyes burning in it like those of a woman in a fever.
"'You are ready to come back?' he asked, sitting on his horse, smoking and scowling down on her.
"'What are you going to do with me?' she asked in a trembling voice.