Few of the married families were without their Bibles; and he, who stood next in age to Du Plessis, said a prayer over the open grave. While they were occupied in closing it with safe blocks of stone, a mother gathered a little flock around her, and read them a chapter suited to the occasion. Madame Vander Roey sat beside her, weeping bitterly; the men stood apart in groups. Some had been impressed with the old man's last words, "Peace, peace." But as in all disorganised communities the strong and evil spirit of man's nature prevails over the good, there were not wanting women, as well as men, to step forward and urge even the incident of old Du Plessis' death as an incentive to carry out the purpose of wrath and of revenge. He, the aged, the virtuous, the banished patriarch!--who had driven him into the wilderness to die, but his white brother, another Cain? Were they to submit to the will of these jealous, bad white brethren, who permitted the savage Kafir the exercise of his diabolical laws, his heathen rites, and denied the poor Dutch colonist the use of his own moral laws? Who had first robbed them of their slaves, and then pretended to make them compensation for depriving them of what was theirs by purchase? Had not Du Plessis himself urged the obligation of making a sacrifice, because it was disgraceful to white men to trade in human flesh? What reward had he gained? His cattle had been swept away, his sons shot down by the Kafirs, his home devastated; he had met with no pity or redress, and he had died sorrow-stricken amid the mountains of the storm. And to add to these grievances, men had belied them, and were still belying them, in England. The traders, now with them, had brought them the evil sayings of wicked or ignorant Englishmen, who proclaimed to the world that the Boer was cruel and rapacious, never satisfied with the land he had pillaged from the Hottentots, but committing unequalled cruelties against them, entering their countries with commandoes, despoiling them of their cattle, devastating their villages; but men were among them now who knew how false these allegations were; that the commandoes, wherein many a life was lost, were undertaken to recover their own goods stolen from them by the thieving Hottentots, the bushmen, and Kafirs, who had no villages, except hamlets of huts built by the hands of women, their beasts of burden; a noble race were these to be indulged and pitied by enlightened men of the greatest nation in the world... "Peace. Yes, they would have peace; but the waters of many a river must be turned into blood first ere this would be. On, on! to the land of promise, the land flowing with milk and honey, where they should have their own rules, and the judge and the criminal speak one language face to face!"