men, on learning
her whereabouts, should gather a commando and send it to take her from
him, as doubtless we should have done had it been in any way possible.

Indeed, the foolish dream of the diviner as to the leading of his army
by a white swallow, followed as it chanced to be by the arrival at
his town of a woman who was named Swallow, had taken such a hold of
Sigwe--who, like all savages, was very superstitious--that for nothing
which could have been offered to him would he have consented to let
Suzanne go until the war with the Endwandwe was finished. Rather than
do so he would have fought till the last, and he issued an order that
if any man, woman, or child spoke of Suzanne's presence in his town to
strangers they should be put to death without mercy. Moreover, in his
terror lest she should escape, he set a guard over her and Sihamba day
and night and other guards over the horses and the lad Zinti, so that
they soon learned that all hopes of flight must be abandoned and that it
was not possible even to send a messenger or a letter.

As may be guessed this was a sore grief to Suzanne, so great a grief
that when they were back in the guest-hut she wept long and bitterly,
for her heart ached with her own sorrow, and she knew well how deep
would be the torment of mind of Ralph if he still lived, and of us, her
father and mother, when we learned that she had vanished quite away,
and that none could tell what her fate had been. At first she thought of
bidding Zinti slip away under cover of the night, but Sihamba showed her
that even if he could do so, which was not likely, the end of it must
be that he would be followed and put to death, and that then his blood
would be upon their hands and no good done. Afterwards she tried to
bribe and to command several men of her guard to take the message, but
in this matter alone the people of Sigwe would not obey her, for they
knew the doom which awaited them if they listened to her pleading. So,
when she spoke, they looked into the air over her head, and did not seem
to hear, although afterwards they reported her words to Sigwe, whereupon
that chief doubled the guard, setting a second to watch the first.

And now I have to tell you one of the strangest things in the strange
story of the love of Ralph Kenzie and my daughter Suzanne. It will
be remembered that it was by means of a dream--or so the child
declared--that Suzanne was led to where the boy Ralph lay alone and
starving