His reasoning proved correct. A rough track led through the cultivated belt of land. He came first to a cluster of kraals, avoided them dextrously (since he had no wish to be seen if the farm should not prove to be one of those he sought), and skirting a slight rise, came suddenly upon the farm itself. It was the usual low building, with a corrugated roof, and a stoep running round two sides of it.

The sun was setting now, a red, angry blur on the horizon, and a woman was standing in the open doorway, looking out into the falling dusk. Herr Schaefer pulled his hat well over his eyes and came up the steps.

‘Is this by any chance the farm of Mr Henshel?’ he asked.

The woman nodded without speaking, staring at him with wide blue eyes. Schaefer drew a deep breath of relief, and looked back at her with a measure of appreciation. He admired the Dutch, wide-bosomed type such as this. A grand creature, with her full breast and her wide hips; not young, nearer forty than thirty, fair hair just touched with grey parted simply in the middle of her wide forehead, something grand and forceful about her, like a patriarch’s wife of old.

‘A fine mother of sons,’ thought Herr Schaefer appreciatively. ‘Also, let us hope, a good cook!’

His requirements of women were primitive and simple.

‘Mr Henshel expects me, I think,’ said the German, and added in a slightly lower tone: ‘I am interested in potatoes.’

She gave the expected reply.

‘We, too, are cultivators of vegetables.’ She spoke the words correctly, but with a strong accent. Her English was evidently not her strong point and Schaefer put her down as belonging to one of those Dutch Nationalist families who forbid their children to use the interloper’s tongue. With a big, work-stained hand, she pointed behind him.

‘You come from Jo’burg—yes?’

He nodded.

‘Things are finished there. I escaped by the skin of my teeth. Then I lost myself on the veldt. It is pure chance that I found my way here.’

The Dutch woman shook her head. A strange ecstatic smile irradiated her broad features.

‘There is no chance—only God. Enter, then.’

Approving her sentiments, for Herr Schaefer liked a woman to be religious, he crossed the threshold. She drew back to let him pass, the smile still lingering on her face, and just for a moment the thought that there was something here he did not quite understand flashed across Herr Schaefer’s mind. He dismissed the idea as of little importance.