With the moment of departure it occurred to him what a fool he had been to come. He did not know what he had expected from the visit. It had proved a wild, impossible venture. A man may not take the law into his own hands even in Africa. Had he killed Holman he would have found himself placed in an awkward dilemma. It would not have been easy to establish a sufficient reason for the act. He had nothing but circumstantial evidence to produce against Holman, evidence which would have implicated Honor, and which therefore he could not have made use of. He realised clearly that he had been actuated by a strong personal animus, the result of his recognition of the man's responsibility for the poisoning of Honor's mind, and the systematic fostering of her brother's disloyalty. It had never been with him a question of German treachery against England, but of the injury done to himself through the woman he had loved His sense of justice had not sprung from any lofty motive; therefore its failure of accomplishment, though humiliating, was not deserving of many regrets. He climbed into the spider with difficulty and seated himself beside Butter Tom, who, by dint of a vigorous application of the whip, induced the stubborn horse to break into an uncomfortable trot. "This horse bad schelm," the Kaffir observed critically. "Him got seven debels in him." Matheson looked back towards the rondavel, remembering now that they were moving the few things he had brought with him and which he had forgotten to pack. He was about to tell the Kaffir to return in order to fetch his possessions when he became aware of Leentje Nel's figure in the distance, running towards them, and changed his mind. The Dutchwoman gesticulated violently, and shouted to Butter Tom to stop. Butter Tom heard her, and looked back; then, with his whip arm upraised, he glanced inquiringly at the baas' imperturbable face. "Drive on," Matheson commanded. The whip fell relentlessly across the animal's lean flanks. Butter Tom stood up to the business, and narrowly escaped being thrown out on to the veld as the horse, after an indignant plunge and two ineffectual attempts to splinter the splashboard with its hoofs, broke into a furious gallop, bumping the spider behind it like a toy cart over the rough stony ground. Matheson, hanging on with his left hand, watched, with a light of understanding for Honor's urgency breaking in upon him, Leentje Nel's pursuing figure pounding after them in futile and angry chase. CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. The dark cloud which had so long overshadowed South Africa, which stretched now blacker than it had ever appeared across the sky of the Union's prosperity, was none the less surely passing, rolling backward with sullen reluctance before the strong opposing breath of leading opinion.