The Kaffir made off. There was in the woolly head instructed at the Mission-station a suspicion that the tall, stern-faced baas with the eye that pierced through one, and the ugly scar along his jaw, was, if not the Devil himself, a very near relation. Had he suddenly disappeared in smoke with his captive, though it would have terrified the black man, it would not greatly have astonished him. As he moved rapidly away to where the horses were hitched to the pole of the cart he came upon one of his former gods, a strange-looking insect that, after the manner of the chameleon, took on the shade of the grass upon which it fed. It closely resembled in form a forked blade of coarse grass. With a surreptitious look about him to make certain he was not observed, the Kaffir bowed before his one-time god and uttered a weird invocation in his native tongue for protection against the white man's Devil. Then in order to square the white man's God he looked up at the blue sky in the hope that the great mysterious Being, who was somewhere behind the clouds, was not conversant with the Kaffir language, and so had failed to understand his lapse into idolatry, and cried aloud, parrot-fashion, a prayer he had been taught in English when he became a convert at the Mission, because his brother Klaus had joined the Mission, and had a blanket given him, and plenty good things when he was zwak. But the chance encounter with the little grass-god, which, being tangible, was easier of comprehension, did more to reassure him than the prayer sent into the blue distance which, having such a long way to travel, might never reach. The Kaffir's idea of time was vague. He went by the sun. One hour the sun him so much higher. He rubbed down the horses as best he could, having nothing to groom them with save handfuls of grass, and led them away to the watercourse to drink. He did not hasten to return, but kept an observant eye on the sun, fearful of incurring the baas' anger by overstaying the limit. When he judged the hour up he returned to the uitspan and proceeded to harness the horses. The baas still stood with his hands in his pockets; but he no longer watched the other baas, who was reclining again on the cushions of the cart, a huddled inert mass of misery. The game was up, and he had lost finally. He felt like a man who has toiled honestly and laboriously and been scandalously defrauded of the rewards of his industry. The Kaffir finished harnessing the horses, and then came up for the cushions. Lawless spoke to Van Bleit, and he got up sullenly, kicking the native savagely as he stooped and reached out a dusky hand. The Kaffir shot a venomous glance at him, but uttered no verbal protest. He gathered up the cushions and carried them away and arranged them in the cart. Then he mounted to his seat and sat with the reins in his hands, waiting. Lawless again addressed himself to Van Bleit. "Turn round," he said curtly, "and I'll unfasten your wrists."