had guarded the entrance to the kloof, at whom
Zinti had fired, and under fear of death this man confessed all he knew,
which was that Suzanne, Sihamba and Zinti had escaped northward upon
their horses, followed by Swart Piet and his band.

Accordingly northwards they rode, but they never found any traces of
them, for rain had fallen, washing out their spoor, and as might be
expected in that vast veldt they headed in the wrong direction. So
at last worn out, they returned to the stead, hoping that Suzanne and
Sihamba would have found their way back there, but hoping in vain.

After that for days and weeks they searched and hunted, but quite
without result, for as it chanced the Kaffirs who lived between the
territory of Sigwe and the stead rose in arms just then, and began to
raid the Boer farms, stealing the cattle, including some of our own, so
that it was impossible to travel in their country, and therefore nobody
ever reached the town of Sigwe to make inquiries there.

The end of it was that, exhausted by search and sorrow, Jan sat down at
home and abandoned hope; nor could the prayers and urgings of Ralph, who
all this while was unable even to mount a horse, persuade him to go out
again upon so fruitless an errand.

"No, son," he answered, "long before this the girl is either dead or
she is safe far away, and in either event it is useless to look for her
about here, since Van Vooren's kraal is watched, and we know that she is
not in it." To which Ralph would answer:

"She is not dead, I know that she is not dead," and we understood that
he spoke of the vision which had come to him, for I had told the tale of
it to Jan. But in his heart Jan put no faith in the vision, and believed
that Suzanne, our beloved child, had been dead for many days, for he was
certain that she would die rather than fall again into the hands of Van
Vooren, as I was also, and indeed of this we were glad to be sure.

To Ralph, however, that we might comfort him in his sorrow, which was
even more terrible than our own, we made pretence that we believed
Suzanne to be hiding far away, but unable to communicate with us, as in
fact she was.

Oh! our lives were sad during those bitter months. Yes, the light
had gone out of our lives, and often we wished, the three of us, that
already we were resting in the grave. As he recovered from his wounds
and the strength of his body came back to him, a kind of gentle
madness took hold of Ralph which it