"I mean, Suzanne, that it is not well for any of us to let our love wrap itself too closely about a stranger. Ralph is an Englishman, not a Boer. He names me mother and your father, father; and you he names sister, but to us he is neither son nor brother. Well, a day may come when he learns to understand this, when he learns to understand also that he has other kindred, true kindred far away across the sea; and if those birds call, who will keep him in the strange nest?"
"Ah!" she echoed, all dismayed, "who will keep him then?"
"I do not know," I answered; "not a foster father or mother. But I forgot. Say, did he take his rifle with him to the kraal?"
"Surely, I saw it in his hand."
"Then, daughter, if you will, get on a horse, and if you can find Ralph, tell him that I shall be very glad if he can shoot a small buck and bring it back with him, as I need fresh meat."
"May I stay with him while he shoots the buck, mother?"
"Yes, if you are not in his way and do not stop too long."
Then, without more words, Suzanne left me, and presently I saw her cantering across the veldt upon her grey mare that Ralph had broken for her, and wondered if she would find him and what luck he would have with the hunt that day.
Now it seems that Suzanne found Ralph and gave him my message, and that they started together to look for buck on the strip of land which lies between the seashore and the foot of the hills, where sometimes the blesbok and springbok used to feed in thousands. But on this day there were none to be seen, for the dry grass had already been burnt off, so that there was nothing for them to eat.
"If mother is to get her meat to-day," said Ralph at length, "I think that we must try the hill side for a duiker or a bush-buck."
So they turned inland and rode towards that very kloof where years before Suzanne had discovered the shipwrecked boy. At the mouth of this kloof was a patch of marshy ground, where the reeds still stood thick, since being full of sap they had resisted the fire.
"That is a good place for a riet-buck," said Ralph, "if only one could beat him out of it, for the reeds are too tall to see to shoot in them."
"It can be managed," answered Suzanne. "Do you go and stand in the neck of the kloof while I ride through the reeds towards you."