and the blood went cold even in the hearts of those
savage men.

"Suzanne," said Swart Piet in a low, hoarse voice, "I have dared much to
win you, and I wish to treat you kindly, but if you cry out again, for
my own safety's sake and that of those with me, we must gag you."

She made no answer to him, nor did she speak at all except one word, and
that word "_Murderer_." Then she closed her eyes as though to shut out
the sight of his face, and sat silent, saying nothing and doing nothing,
even when Piet and the other man who supported her had mounted and
pushed their horses to a gallop, leading that on which she rode by a
riem.

It might be thought after receiving a pistol bullet fired into him at a
distance of four paces, and being cast down through fifty feet of space
into a pool of the sea, that there was an end of Ralph Kenzie for ever
on this earth. But thanks to the mercy of God this was not so, for the
ball had but shattered his left shoulder, touching no vital part, and
the water into which he fell was deep, so that, striking against no
rock, he rose presently to the surface, and the pool being but narrow,
was able to swim to one side of it where the beach shelved. Up that
beach Ralph could not climb, however, for he was faint with loss of
blood and shock. Indeed, his senses left him while he was in the water,
but it chanced that he fell forward and not backward, so that his head
rested upon the shelving edge of the pool, all the rest of his body
being beneath its surface. Lying thus, had the tide been rising, he
would speedily have drowned, but it had turned, and so, the water being
warm, he took no further harm.

Now Sihamba did not leave the stead till some hours after Ralph and his
bride had trekked away. She knew where they would outspan, and as she
did not wish that they should see her yet, or until they were too far
upon their journey to send her back, it was her plan to reach the spot,
or rather a hiding-place in the kloof within a stone's throw of it,
after they had gone to rest. So it came about that at the time when
Ralph and Suzanne were surprised by Swart Piet, Sihamba was riding along
quietly upon the horse which Jan had given her, accompanied by the lad
Zinti, perched on the strong brown mule in the midst of cooking pots,
bags of meal, biltong, and rolls of blankets. Already, half a mile
off or more, she could see the cap of the waggon gleaming white in the
moonlight, when suddenly away to