The children ran to the window and gazed out into the starlit heavens. The last sight Outa had, as he drained the soopje glass the Baas was just in time to hand him, was of three little heads bobbing up and down in time to the immemorial music of the Stars, while little Jan’s excited treble rang out: “Yes, it’s quite true, Outa. They do say, ‘It’s so! It’s so! It’s so!’”
[1] It is both curious and interesting to find the identical belief obtaining amongst races so widely different as the Scandinavians of Northern Europe and the Bushmen of South Africa.—See Hans Andersen’s Little Match Girl: “Her Grandmother had told her that when a star fell down a soul mounted up to God.”
[2] “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”—Job xxxviii. 7.
VIII.
Why the Hare’s Nose is Slit.
The curtains had not yet been drawn nor the shutters closed, and little Jan looked with wide serious eyes at the full moon sailing serenely in the cold sky. Then he sighed as though thoughts too big for expression stirred within him, and turned absently towards the purring fire.
“And why does the big man make such a sighing?” asked Outa Karel. “It is like the wind in the mealie land at sun-under.”
Little Jan’s eyes slowly withdrew their gaze from some inward vision and became conscious of the old native. “Outa,” he said, “why is the moon so far away, and so beautiful, and so golden?”