Before Van Busch could bestir himself to interpret, Lady Hannah had repeated her words in faulty Dutch.
"So! Engelsch mevrouws disobey their husbands, it seems?" Were the fierce, bloodshot grey eyes really capable of a twinkle? "We Boers have a cure for that. Green reim, well laid on, after the third caution, teaches our wives to fib and deceive no more."
"You're wrong, sir."
"Wrong, do you say? Hoe?"
"What the green reim does teach them," explained Lady Hannah, secretly aghast at her own temerity, "is, not to be found out next time."
He gave a wooden chuckle, but his regard was as menacing and his voice as gruff as ever.
"I make no mouth-play with words. I talk in men and guns, and there are half a dozen among the Engelsch, niet mier, that know how to talk back. There are one or two others that are duyvels, and not men. And the worst duyvel of all"—he waved the big hand westward—"is he over there at Gueldersdorp."
She mentally registered the compliment.
"You are a woman who writes for the Engelsch newspapers that are full of shameless tales about the Boers." He spat copiously upon the floor, and the big voice became a bellow. "Lies, lies! I have had them read to me, and the people who make them should be shot. Hear you now. You shall write to them and say: 'Selig Brounckers is a merciful man and a just. He is not as zwart as he is painted. He caught me mousing round his hoofd laager at Tweipans—and what does he do?'" The pause was impressive. Then the roaring voice resumed:
"'He sends me marching down to the gaol at Groenfontein, that is packed with dirty white and dirty coloured schelms until there is not room for one more——"