"Because it did."

The last words were uttered with the air of one who produces a clinching
argument. What effect it had on the questioner was not evident, for he
made no reply, and turned away from her.

Drawing closer to Lyndall's feet, he said after a while in a low voice:

"Lyndall, has it never seemed to you that the stones were talking with you?
Sometimes," he added in a yet lower tone, "I lie under there with my sheep,
and it seems that the stones are really speaking--speaking of the old
things, of the time when the strange fishes and animals lived that are
turned into stone now, and the lakes were here; and then of the time when
the little Bushmen lived here, so small and so ugly, and used to sleep in
the wild dog holes, and in the sloots, and eat snakes, and shot the bucks
with their poisoned arrows. It was one of them, one of these old wild
Bushmen, that painted those," said the boy, nodding toward the pictures--
"one who was different from the rest. He did not know why, but he wanted
to make something beautiful--he wanted to make something, so he made these.
He worked hard, very hard, to find the juice to make the paint; and then he
found this place where the rocks hang over, and he painted them. To us
they are only strange things, that make us laugh; but to him they were very
beautiful."

The children had turned round and looked at the pictures.

"He used to kneel here naked, painting, painting, painting; and he wondered
at the things he made himself," said the boy, rising and moving his hand in
deep excitement. "Now the Boers have shot them all, so that we never see a
little yellow face peeping out among the stones." He paused, a dreamy look