"Next day Mynheer van der Poel took Christina into a kraal, and when she had confessed her meetings with the Englishman, he gave her a sound beating with a stirrup- leather, and told her that for the future she must not go alone outside of the house.
"'And either I or one of your brothers will always be at home,' concluded the old man, 'so that if this Mynheer Dunn comes, he will be shot.'
"So Christina for upwards of a month never saw her Englishman. Of course the matter was a great scandal, and her people said as little as they could about it; but, nevertheless, it got about, and the number of visitors to the farm for the next week or two was astonishing. But call as often as they pleased, the Englishman stayed away and they saw nothing of him.
"But one morning when daylight came Christina was missing. They looked about, and there was no trace of her, but in the road outside there was the spoor of a cart that had halted in passing during the night.
"'It is plain enough,' said the old man 'She is with her Englishman at Bothaskraal. Sons, get your rifles, and we will ride over.'
"But on the way they had to pass Morder Drift, and thinking only of the shame to their house, they rode altogether into the water, none looking ahead. There had been rains, and each man was compelled to give all his care to guiding his horse through the torrent, while holding his rifle aloft in one hand.
"When they were thus all in the water together they heard a shout, and the Englishman on a big horse rode down to the water's edge. He had a gun at his shoulder covering them all, and they headed their horses up-stream and halted to hear him speak.
"He was prideful and contemptuous. 'Six of you,' he cried, 'no less than six, who have come out to kill one man, and the whole lot bottled up in the middle of a ditch and waiting to be shot. The first one that moves his rifle till I give permission dies.'
"Not one of them answered, but all kept their eyes on him. Old Mynheer van der Poel had a cartridge in his rifle, and he touched his horse with the spur under water that it might fidget round towards the Englishman.
"'Well,' said the man on the bank, 'if I shot each one of you as you sit, I should be in my right, and not one could blame me. But where I come from one does not shoot even a duck sitting, and I am going to let you go. You shall have a chance to do the thing decently, so come back and fight me openly. Or,' and he laughed as he spoke, 'you can do it another way. I am leaving this cursed country shortly with Christina. See if you can get at me and kill me before then. It's a fair offer; but I warn you you'll find it a dangerous game, and there'll be blood-letting on the one side or the other.'