Turning my horse I rode back again to meet the cart.  As I reached the edge of the wood at the top of the slope I heard a whistle blown, a very shrill whistle, of which the sound would travel for a mile or two on that still air.  Also I heard the sound of men’s voices in altercation and caught words, such as—­“Let go, or by Heaven—!” then a furious laugh and other words which seemed to be—­“In five minutes the Kaffirs will be here.  In ten you will be dead.  Can I help it if they kill you after I have warned you to turn back?” Then a woman’s scream.

Rodd’s voice, Anscombe’s voice and Kaatje’s scream—­not Heda’s but Kaatje’s!

Then as I rode furiously round the last patch of intervening trees the sound of a pistol shot.  I was out of them now and saw everything.  There was the cart on the further side of a swamp.  The horses were standing still and snorting.  Holding the rein of one of the leaders was Rodd, whose horse also stood close by.  He was rocking on his feet and as I leapt from my mare and ran up, I saw his face.  It was horrible, full of pain and devilish rage.  With his disengaged hand he pointed to Anscombe sitting in the cart and grasping a pistol that still smoked.

“You’ve killed me,” he said in a hoarse, choking voice, for he was shot through the lung, “to get her,” and he waved his hand towards Heda who was peering at him between the heads of the two men.  “You are a murderer, as her father was, and as David was before you.  Well, I hope you won’t keep her long.  I hope you’ll die as I do and break her false heart, you damned thief.”

All of this he said in a slow voice, pausing between the words and speaking ever more thickly as the blood from his wound choked him.  Then of a sudden it burst in a stream from his lips, and still pointing with an accusing finger at Anscombe, he fell backwards into the slimy pool behind him and there vanished without a struggle.

So horrible was the sight that the driver, Footsack, leapt from the cart, uttering a kind of low howl, ran to Rodd’s horse, scrambled into the saddle and galloped off, striking it with his fist, where to I do not know.  Anscombe put his hand before his eyes, Heda sank down on the seat in a heap, and the coloured woman, Kaatje, beat her breast and said something in Dutch about being accursed or bewitched.  Luckily I kept my wits and went to the horses’ heads, fearing lest they should start and drag the trap into the pool.  “Wake up,” I said.  “That fellow has only got what he deserved, and you were quite right to shoot him.”

“I am glad you think so,” answered Anscombe absently.  “It was so like murder.  Don’t you remember I told you I should kill a man in this place and about a woman?”

“I remember nothing,” I answered boldly, “except that if we stop here much longer we shall have those Basutos on us.  That brute was whistling to them and holding the horses till they came to kill us.  Pull yourself together, take the reins and follow me.”