Page:Life of Africaner.pdf/17

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
life of africaner.
17

rejoined, in a faltering voice ; 'it is your ghost!' and moved some steps backward. I am no ghost.' 'Don't come near me!' he exclaimed; 'you have been long murdered by Africaner.' 'But I am no ghost,' I said, feeling my hands. as if to convince him and myself, too, of my materiality; but his alarm only increased. 'Everybody says you were murdered; and a man told me he had seen your bones;' and he continued to gaze at me, to the no small astonishment of the good wife and children, who were standing at the door, as also to that of my people, who were looking on from the waggon below. At length, he extended his trembling hand, saying, 'When did you rise from the dead?' As he feared my presence would alarm his wife, we bent our steps towards the waggon, and Africaner was the subject of our conversation. I gave him in a few words my views of his present character, saying, 'He is now a truly good man.' To which he replied, 'I can believe almost any thing you say, but that I cannot credit; there are seven wonders in the world, that would be the eighth.' I appealed to the displays of Divine grace in a Paul, a Manasseh, and referred to his own experience. He replied, these were another description of men, but that Africaner was one of the accursed sons of Ham, enumerating some of the atrocities of which he had been guilty. By this time we were standing with Africaner at our feet, on whose countenance sat a smile, well knowing the prejudices of some of the farmers. The farmer closed the conversation by saying, with much carnestness, 'Well, if what you assert be true respecting that man, I havo only one wish, and that is, to