silver box from the inside pocket in which it was kept. Removing the
chamois leather covering, which showed a clean cut an inch long, he
gazed with astonishment upon, the box itself. The assegai had struck it
fair, and there in the centre of the lid its point, broken off flush,
remained firmly embedded. He turned the box over. The point had just
indented the other side but not sufficiently to show through.

For some minutes he sat gazing upon it, with a strange mixture of
feeling, and well he might. This last gift of Eanswyth's had been the
means of saving his life--it and it alone. It had lain over his heart,
and but for its intervention that sure and powerfully directed stroke
would have cleft his heart in twain. That was absolutely a fact, and
one established beyond any sort of doubt.

Her hand had averted the death-stroke--the shield of her love had stood
between him and certain destruction. Surely--surely that love could not
be so unlawful--so accursed a thing. It had availed to save him--to
save him for itself. Eustace was not a superstitious man, but even he
might, to a certain extent, feel justified in drawing a highly
favourable augury from the circumstance. Yet he was not out of his
difficulties--his perils--yet. They had, in fact, only just begun; and
this he knew.

So far his captors had not ill-treated him, rather the reverse. But
this augured next to nothing either way. The Gcalekas had suffered
severe losses. Even now they were in hiding. They were not likely to
be in a very merciful mood in dealing with a white prisoner, one of the
hated race which had shot down their righting men, driven them from
their country, and carried off most of their cattle. The people would
clamour for his blood, the chiefs would hardly care to run counter to
their wish--he would probably be handed over to the witch-doctors and
put to some hideous and lingering death.

It was a frightful thought, coming upon him alone and helpless. Better
that the former blow had gone home. He would have met with a swift and
merciful death in the excitement of battle--whereas now? And then it
crossed his mind that the interposition of the silver box might not have
been a blessing after all, but quite the reverse. What if it had only
availed to preserve him for a death amid lingering torments? But no, he
would not think that. If her love had been the means of preserving him
thus far, it had preserved him for itself. Y