



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




A Vendetta of the Desert
By William Charles Scully
Published by Methuen and Co, London.
This edition dated 1898.
A Vendetta of the Desert, by William Charles Scully.

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A VENDETTA OF THE DESERT, BY WILLIAM CHARLES SCULLY.



CHAPTER ONE.

THE POWER OF THE DOG.

Old Tyardt van der Walt, head of the family of that name, came of good
Netherlands stock.  His grandfather had emigrated from Holland with his
family in the middle of the Eighteenth Century and settled at the Cape.
He bought a farm in the Stellenbosch district and there commenced life
anew as a wine farmer.  The family consisted of his wife, a son and
several daughters--all of whom married early.  At his death the farm
descended to his son Cornelius from whom, in course of time, another
Tyardt inherited it.

The last-mentioned Tyardt forsook the settled and fertile environs of
Stellenbosch and trekked forward to seek his fortune in the unknown and
perilous wilderness.  A story is told as to the reason for this
migration which, though it has no direct bearing on the story which is
to be recorded in this volume, is interesting enough in itself to merit
relation.

There was, it is said, a gruesome legend connected with the van der
Walts.  It dated from the times of William the Silent and was to the
following effect:--The head of the van der Walt family of that period
lived in the town of Maestricht.  He was a man of solitary habits.  In
his youth his wife had deserted him for another.  He had been
passionately attached to her, and he never recovered from