arching stealthily in a triple
line with companies thrown forward to the right and left. They shouted
in astonishment, but before they could harm him or the horse he was out
of reach of their spears and galloping forward with a glad heart, for
now he thought the danger done with.

Down the slope he thundered, and the sound of his horse's hoofs came to
the ears of Suzanne, who, frozen with terror, crouched in the grass near
the spring at the foot of it. Turning her eyes from the ridge where
she had seen the Zulus, she looked behind her. At first she could
see nothing except a great horse with a man upon its back, but as she
stared, presently she recognised the horse--it was the _schimmel_, and
none other.

And the man. Whose shape was that? No, this one had a golden beard. Ah!
He lifted his head, from which the hat had fallen, and--did she dream?
Nay, by Heaven, it was her husband, grown older and bearded, but still
her husband. In the piercing agony of that happiness she sank back
half-fainting, nor was it till he was almost upon her that she could
gain her feet. He saw her, and in the dim light, mistaking her for
a Zulu soldier who way-laid him, lifted the gun in his hand to fire.
Already he was pressing the trigger when--when she found her voice and
cried out:

"Ralph, Ralph, I am Suzanne, your wife."

As the words left her lips it seemed to her as though some giant had
thrown the big horse back upon its haunches, for he slipped past
her, his flanks almost touching the ground, which he ploughed with
outstretched hoofs. Then he stopped dead.

"Have I found you at last, wife?" cried Ralph, in a voice of joy so
strange that it sounded scarcely human. "Mount swiftly, for the Zulus
are behind."

Thus, then, these two met again, not on the Mountain of the Man's Hand
indeed, as the vision had foretold, but very near to it.

"Nay," Suzanne answered, as she sprang on to the saddle before him,
"they are in front, for I saw them."

Ralph looked. Yes, there they were in front and to the side and behind.
All round them the Zulu impi gathered and thickened, crying, "_Bulala
umlungu_" (Kill the white man) as they closed in upon them at a run.

"Oh! Ralph, what can we do?" murmured Suzanne.

"Charge them and trust to God," he answered.

"So be it, husband," and, turning herself upon the pommel of the
saddle, she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him on the lips,
whispering, "At least we have met again, and if