The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1902-08-22

better than himself. The warden LOOK.
ed up at last and saw the Kaffir's be-
wildered, saddened face, saddened as
dogs eyes are saddened when it
misses something that is gone and can
not understand. Sixpence's ideal was
dead. Dimly and with dull pain he
felt that there was little to choose be-
tween being white or being black.
"What are we to do?" the warden
asked. eve can't go back to the Jail"
SiXpence had not thought of that, but
he at once understood. He had es-
capped hanging for manslaughter by a
narrow edge because the Kaffir he had
slain had been in the wrong, but how
could the warden escape hanging?
"To the kraals," he said, his mind re-
verting, childlike, to it's affection for
and obedience to his master. He sud-
denly groveled at the warden's feet
and began to howl softly, speaking in
his native dialect. "They shall not
hang the master-rather me, Sixpence,
the Bechuana. Am 1 not black and of
no use? But the ba-as-how shall his
children in the Jail live without him?
But they shall not catch us! Know
the way through the big desert, Kali
hari? I will show the ba-as the path
to the kraals, and my people will hide
us and protect u.s."
With sudden, prolonged wall he
recollected the delights, the plenty, the
comforts, of his prison home.
''In the kraals," he moaned, Eve
starve; in the Jail there is plenty
tscoff.'"
For moment the warden's face
frightened. He knew as we'll as Six
pence that he would be hanged If
caught, and he knew that he could
trust himself implicitly to the Bechu-
ana's guidance, but his eyes gloomed
again. Would not hanging be better
than that? To live among savages, to
starve and be cold of nights and suffer
from fever-surely some other way.
Something in the moonlight by the
dead man had drawn the Kaffiris no.
tice. The magistrates left hand lay
spread on the road, the fingers point
ing reproachfully at his murderer. On
one finger cleaned diamond ring. A
Kaffir, dying, would have strength to
steal a diamond. Forgetting every
thing else, SiXpence passed the reins
again to his master, sitting on the ant
heap, thinking, thinking in a panic of
fear and doubt. SiXpence dropped by
the body and seized the dead mans
hand. Duly the warden watched him,
and, as lightning fash reveals the
hidden things, so a sudden, lurid
thought banished the mist from his
brain and showed him what to do. He
considered rapidly. The convict had
brought his horse to him and met him
on the road. No one had seen them to-
gether that night save the magistrate
and he could not tell. 1t could all be
explained, easily explained, to the au-
thorities. In his coat pocket he felt
his revolver, little bulldog thing, but
quite, quite big enough. Sixpence knelt
by the body. The warden sprang upon
him and grasped him by the shoulders,
so that the black looked round at him
in dumb amaZement.
"Ba-as angry?" he asked, like a
child.
Then the look in the warden's eyes
terrified him.
''Ba-as, the ba-asw he walled, but be-
fore the wall died on his tongue the
pistol had cracked close to the nipple
on his black breast, and he fell back
beside the magistrate. In his hand he
grasped the ring. De Jough seized the
blood stained knobkerry and put it be-
side him. Then the white man leaped
upon his startled horse and galloped
away.
"a simple ending" he thought, with
horrid chuckle. "Of course he mur-
dered the chief for the diamond; Of
course, coming home 1 found him ri
fling the body; he resisted, and shot
him. The poor beast-well, it's only a
Kaffir"
In the moonlight, face up, they found
SiXpence when the guards from the
Jail came down the kopje. His face
was not distorted at all, but rather the
reflection of a panied surprise as he
thought, in the moment of dying, that
he had been deceived.