He turned slowly away and walked down the little path to his cabin, with his shoulders bent; it was all dark before him.

He stumbled over the threshold of his own well-known door.
Em, sobbing bitterly, would have followed him; but the Boer-woman prevented her by a flood of speech which convulsed the Hottentot, so low were its images.
"Come, Em," said Lyndall, lifting her small proud head, "let us go in.
We will not stay to hear such language." She looked into the Boer-woman's eyes.

Tant Sannie understood the meaning of the look if not the words.

She waddled after them, and caught Em by the arm.

She had struck Lyndall once years before, and had never done it again, so she took Em.
"So you will defy me, too, will you, you Englishman's ugliness!" she cried, and with one hand she forced the child down, and held her head tightly against her knee; with the other she beat her first upon one cheek, and then upon the other.
For one instant Lyndall looked on, then she laid her small fingers on the Boer-woman's arm.