Swallow: A Tale of the Great Trek

  Now Black Piet and his men crept up the kloof carrying Suzanne withthem, till they came to a little patch of rocky ground at the head of itwhere they had left their horses.

  "That was very well managed," said Piet as they loosed them andtightened their girths, "and none can ever know that we have made thisjourney. To-morrow the bride and bridegroom will be missed, but the seahas one and I have the other, and hunt as they may they will never findher, nor guess where she has gone. No, it will be remembered that theywalked down to the sea, and folk will think that by chance they fellfrom the cliff into the deep water and vanished there. Yes, it was wellmanaged and none can guess the truth."

  Now the man to whom he spoke, that same man with whom the boy Zinti hadheard him plot our murder in the Tiger Kloof, shrugged his shoulders andanswered:

  "I think there is one who will guess."

  "Who is that, fool?"

  "She about whose neck I once set a rope at your bidding, Bull-Head,and whose life was bought by those lips," and he pointed to Suzanne,"Sihamba Ngenyanga."

  "Why should she guess?" asked Piet angrily.

  "Has she not done so before? Think of the great _schimmel_ and its riderin Tiger Kloof. Moreover, what does her name mean? Does it not mean'Wanderer-by-moonlight,' and was not this great deed of yours a deed atthe telling of which all who hear of it shall grow sick and silent, donein the moonlight, Bull-Head?"

  Now as we learned afterwards from a man whom Jan took prisoner, and whotold us everything which passed that night, hoping to buy his life,Piet made no answer to this saying, but turned to busy himself with hissaddle, for, after his ill dealings with her, he was always afraid ofSihamba, and would never mention her name unless he was obliged. Soonthe horses, most of which were small and of the Basuto breed, were readyto start. On one of the best of them there was a soft pad of sheepskins,such as girls used to ride on when I was young, before we knew anythingabout these new-fangled English saddles with leather hooks to hold therider in her place. On this pad, which had been prepared for her, theyset Suzanne, having first tied her feet together loosely with a riem sothat she might not slip to the ground and attempt to escape by running.Moreover, as she was still in a swoon, they supported her, Black Pietwalking upon one side and a Kaffir upon the other. In this fashion theytravelled for the half of an hour or more, until they were deep in amongthe mountains, indeed, when suddenly with a little sigh Suzanne awoke,and glanced about her with wide, frightened eyes. Then memory cameback to her, and she understood, and, opening her lips, she uttered oneshriek so piercing and dreadful that the rocks of the hills multipliedand echoed it, and the blood went cold even in the hearts of thosesavage men.

  "Suzanne," said Swart Piet in a low, hoarse voice, "I have dared much towin you, and I wish to treat you kindly, but if you cry out again, formy own safety's sake and that of those with me, we must gag you."

  She made no answer to him, nor did she speak at all except one word, andthat word "_Murderer_." Then she closed her eyes as though to shut outthe sight of his face, and sat silent, saying nothing and doing nothing,even when Piet and the other man who supported her had mounted andpushed their horses to a gallop, leading that on which she rode by ariem.