"We are shivering like old women round a death-bed," he said. "Klein Piet, get your rifle; we will see who is mending our work for us."
Klein Piet obeyed, swallowing to ease his tight throat; the old kafir rose too, and the three of them went forth from the light of the fires and across the crisp grass to that dark pit where yet the "clink, clink" of the unseen work was sounding. Piet and his son walked abreast, the kafir a little behind them; his bare feet were soundless as he strode. The Boer was conscious of no fear; only of a strange lightening of his senses and a pricking in his skin such as he had known when he had lain on his rifle at night waiting for a charge of kafirs. As they went, the sound of the hammers grew clearer, till they could pick out the heavy note of the great sledge and the lighter cadence of the top-mall. They halted by an end of bush to mark the steady ring of them and make sure of their breath; the old kafir went on a few paces.
"So the tale was true," they heard him say; and then Piet sprang out, with Klein Piet at his heels, flung up his gun, and fired at the pit. The smoke of the shot blew back into their faces; its noise, peremptory and sudden, thrust their alert faculties from their poise; an effort was needed ere they saw clear again. The pit was empty.
"What did you see?" cried Klein Piet.
"I don't know," answered Piet. "I thought—but I don't know. Let us go and see what they have done to the chain."
Klein Piet had his tinderbox in his pocket; by the light he made, they both bent to look at the link on the ground.
"It is deeper," said Klein Piet. "The cut is half through the iron."
They went back to the camp in a silence of utter bewilderment. To his wife's look and the questions of the younger boys, Piet only answered that he had found no one. The old kafir had gone off without a word to his place among Piet's kafirs, and presently Susanna moved off to her bed in the wagon. Piet packed Jan and Andries off after her, and remained smoking by the fire with Klein Piet opposite him.
"Now," said Klein Piet, when they were alone; "what was it you saw?"
Piet took the pipe from his lips and gazed at him across the fire.