rippling hair hanging about her.

At length one day from her lonely point of outlook she saw a solitary
man limping across the plain, a mere black speck dragging itself forward
like a wounded fly upon a wall. Descending from her seat she sought out
Sihamba.

"Swallow," said the little woman, "there is tidings in your eyes. What
is it?"

"Zinti returns," she answered, "I have seen him from far away."

Now Sihamba smiled, for she thought Zinti lost; also she did not believe
it possible that Sihamba could have recognized him from such a distance.
Still before two hours were over Zinti came, gaunt and footsore, but
healthy and unharmed, and sitting down before Suzanne in her private
enclosure, began at the very beginning of his long story, after the
native fashion, telling of those things which had befallen him upon the
day when he left the mountain nearly two years before.

"Your news? Your news?" said Suzanne.

"Lady, I am telling it," he answered.

"Fool!" exclaimed Sihamba. "Say now, did you find the Baas Kenzie and
the Baas Botmar?"

"No, indeed," he replied, "for they were gone."

"Gone where? Were they alive and well?"

"Yes, yes, they were alive and well, but all the Boers in those parts
have trekked, and they trekked also, believing the lady Swallow to be
dead."

"This is a bitter cup to drink," murmured Suzanne, "yet there is some
sweetness in it, for at least my husband lives."

Then Zinti set out all his story, and Suzanne listened to it in silence,
praising him much and thanking him when he had done. But after that
day her heart failed her, and she seemed to give up hope. Ralph had
vanished, and we, her parents, had vanished, and she was left alone a
prisoner among a little Kaffir tribe, at the foot of whose stronghold
her bitter enemy waited to destroy her. Never was white woman in a
more dreadful or more solitary state, and had it not been for Sihamba's
tender friendship she felt that she must have died.

Now also Swart Piet grew bolder, appearing even on the slopes of the
mountain where his men harried and stole. He did more than this even,
for one morning just before dawn he attacked the pass leading to the
stronghold so secretly and with such skill that his force was halfway
up it before the sentries discovered them. Then they were seen, and the
war-horns blew, and there followed a great fight. Indeed, had it not
been for a lucky chance, it is doubtful how that fight would have ended,
for