A Vendetta of the Desert

Kanu arose from his hard couch on the floor of the cavern wherein he dwelt with his followers and clambered to the top of the rocky ridge which capped the krantz at the foot of...

Aletta, who had mentally and physically become grey like her surroundings, like a tree growing in a damp and dark corner which has long since given up the attempt to shine and b...

One morning Kanu and his men, who had shortly before left their place of abode on a hunting expedition, were astonished at seeing the white tent of a wagon slowing moving throug...

The two waifs resumed their search for the Governor's dwelling with feelings very different from those which had inspired them at the beginning. Throughout the long, blistering...

The excitement consequent upon the battle of Blauwberg and the conquest of the Cape by England had just died down, and the inhabitants of Cape Town were involuntarily coming to...

At the period at which the action of this story is laid the only settled parts of the Cape Colony lay well to the south of the rugged mountain chain, the eastern portion of whic...

Night had almost fallen when Gideon reached his homestead on the seventh day after the trial. He had been, throughout the whole journey, a prey to the keenest misery. In the sho...

The long day drew to a close but Elsie, with the sweet steadfastness of a nature that had hardly ever known what it was to repine, did not feel impatient. She knew that it would...

Tyardt van der walt left a widow, two sons--Stephanus and Gideon--who were twins, and three daughters. As is usual among the Boers, the daughters married early in life; they hav...

Uncle Diederick lived in a structure known in South Africa as a "hartebeeste house." Such a structure suggests a house of cards in its most rudimentary form--when one card is la...

After Gideon had become somewhat accustomed to Elsie's presence that awe with which she had at first inspired him began to lessen. Now that he meant to go away finally nothing s...

Four years had come and gone; four times had the winter rains from the hidden Antarctic floated up to the storm-smitten shores of that continent over which the wings of Ancient...

Old Tyardt van der Walt, head of the family of that name, came of good Netherlands stock. His grandfather had emigrated from Holland with his family in the middle of the Eightee...

Elsie's heart again bounded with delight as she and Kanu hurried along the street. They reached the building indicated by the black boy. It had a large doorway opening to the st...

Stephanus Van Der Walt had entered the door of his prison with the firm conviction that his God--the just and mighty God of the Psalms that he knew so well--had laid this burthe...

It was late in the evening of a misty, depressing day, when Elsie arrived at the Elandsfontein homestead. The same air of unkempt mournfulness brooded over the place. Aletta, wh...

Early in the morning after the arrival of Stephanus, the mob of cattle was driven in and with the assistance of some of the Hottentots a fairly good span of oxen was sorted out....

"Come, child, it is past our time for sleep," said Aletta. She was sitting on the sofa in the _voorhuis_. It was midnight of the day of Gideon's departure. Elsie stood at the op...

Gideon, suffering great agony, had been carried home and laid upon his bed. He adhered firmly to the false accusation which he had brought against his brother, and the whole wor...

Stephanus had two children, both daughters. Sons had been born to him but they died in infancy. His elder daughter, Sara, was seventeen years of age at the time of the encounter...