her, then the
moonlight went out and he returned to his post grumbling over his lost
assegai and saying that he would find it in the jackal's body on the
morrow. Sihamba, listening not far away, knew his voice; it was that of
the fellow who had set the noose about her neck at Swart Piet's bidding
and who was to have done the murder in the pass.

"Now, friend, you are unarmed," she thought to herself, "for you have no
gun with you, and perhaps we shall settle our accounts before you go to
seek that dead jackal by to-morrow's light." Then drawing the assegai
from the cloak and keeping it in her hand, she crept on till she came to
the back of the hut in safety. Still she was not much nearer to her end,
for the hut was new and very well built, and she could find no crack
to look through, though when she placed her ear against its side
she thought that she could hear the sound of a man's voice. In her
perplexity Sihamba cast her eyes upwards and saw that a fine line of
light shone from the smoke-hole at the very top of the hut, which was
hive-shaped, and a thought came into her head.

"If I climb up there," she said to herself, "I can look down through
the smoke-hole and see and hear what passes in the hut. Only then if
the moon comes out again I may be seen lying on the thatch; well, that I
must chance with the rest."

So very slowly and silently, by the help of the rimpis which bound the
straw, she climbed the dome of the hut, laughing to herself to think
that this was the worst of omens for its owner, till at length she
reached the smoke-hole at the top and looked down.

This was what she saw: Half seated, half lying upon a rough bedstead
spread with blankets, was Suzanne. Her hair had come undone and hung
about her, her feet were still loosely bound together, and as the
Kaffir, Asika, had said, her face was like that of a dead woman, and her
eyes were set in a fixed unnatural stare. Before her was a table cut
by natives out of a single block of wood, on which were two candles of
sheep's fat set in bottles, and beyond the table stood Swart Piet, who
was addressing her.

"Suzanne," he said, "listen to me. I have always loved you, Suzanne,
yes, from the time when I was but a boy: we used to meet now and
again, you know, when you were out riding with the Englishman who
is dead"--here Suzanne's face changed, then resumed its deathlike
mask--"and always I worshipped you, and always I hated the Englishman
whom you favoure