“Well, before I could ask him, or about hell either, he was gone like a whiff of smoke from a rifle mouth in a strong wind.”

Hans paused, puffed at his pipe, spat upon the ground in his usual reflective way and asked: 

“Is the Baas tired of the dream or would he like to hear the rest?”

“I should like to hear the rest,” I said in a low voice, for I was strangely moved.

“Well, Baas, while I was standing in that place which was so full of quiet, turning my hat in my hands and wondering what work they would set me to there among the devils, I looked up.  There I saw coming towards me two very beautiful women, Baas, who had their arms round each other’s necks.  They were dressed in white, with the little hard things that are found in shells hanging about them, and bright stones in their hair.  And as they came, Baas, wherever they set a foot flowers sprang up, very pretty flowers, so that all their path across the quiet place was marked with flowers.  Birds too sang as they passed, at least I think they were birds though I could not see them.”

“What were they like, Hans?” I whispered.

“One of them, Baas, the taller I did not know.  But the other I knew well enough; it was she whose name is holy, not to be mentioned.  Yet I must mention that name; it was the Missie Marie herself as last we saw her alive many, many years ago, only grown a hundred times more beautiful."[*]

     [*] See the book called Marie by H. Rider Haggard.

Now I groaned, and Hans went on: 

“The two White Ones came up to me, and stood looking at me with eyes that were more soft than those of bucks.  Then the Missie Marie said to the other:  ‘This is Hans of whom I have so often told you, O Star.’”

Here I groaned again, for how did this Hottentot know that name, or rather its sweet rendering?

“Then she who was called Star asked, ’How goes it with one who is the heart of all three of us, O Hans?’ Yes, Baas, those Shining Ones joined me, the dirty little Hottentot in my old clothes and smelling of tobacco, with themselves when they spoke of you, for I knew they were speaking of you, Baas, which made me think I must be drunk, even there in the quiet place.  So I told them all that I had told your reverend father, and a very great deal more, for they seemed never to be tired of listening.  And once, when I mentioned that sometimes, while pretending to be asleep, I had heard you praying aloud at night for the Missie Marie who died for you, and for another who had been your wife whose name I did not remember but who had also died, they both cried a little, Baas.  Their tears shone like crystals and smelt like that stuff in a little glass tube which Harut said that he brought from some far land when he put a drop or two on your handkerchief, after you were faint from the pain in your leg at the house yonder.  Or perhaps it was the flowers that smelt, for where the tears fell there sprang up white lilies shaped like two babes’ hands held together in prayer.”