“That was a brave one,” said the captain with admiration.  “Can you spring too, girl, or must we throw you?”

“I can walk my father’s path,” Nanea answered faintly, “but first I crave leave to say one word.  It is true that we were escaping from the king, and therefore by the law we must die; but it was Black Heart here who made the plot, and he who has betrayed us.  Would you know why he has betrayed us?  Because he sought my favour, and I refused him, and this is the vengeance that he takes—­a white man’s vengeance.”

“Wow!” broke in the chief Maputa, “this pretty one speaks truth, for the white man would have made a bargain with me under which Umgona, the wizard, and Nahoon, the soldier, were to be killed at the Crocodile Drift, and he himself suffered to escape with the girl.  I spoke him softly and said ‘yes,’ and then like a loyal man I reported to the king.”

“You hear,” sighed Nanea.  “Nahoon, fare you well, though presently perhaps we shall be together again.  It was I who tempted you from your duty.  For my sake you forgot your honour, and I am repaid.  Farewell, my husband, it is better to die with you than to enter the house of the king’s women,” and Nanea stepped on to the platform.

Here, holding to a bough of one of the thorn trees, she turned and addressed Hadden, saying:—­

“Black Heart, you seem to have won the day, but me at least you lose and—­the sun is not yet set.  After sunset comes the night, Black Heart, and in that night I pray that you may wander eternally, and be given to drink of my blood and the blood of Umgona my father, and the blood of Nahoon my husband, who saved your life, and whom you have murdered.  Perchance, Black Heart, we may yet meet yonder—­in the House of the Dead.”

Then uttering a low cry Nanea clasped her hands and sprang upwards and outwards from the platform.  The watchers bent their heads forward to look.  They saw her rush headlong down the face of the fall to strike the water fifty feet below.  A few seconds, and for the last time, they caught sight of her white garment glimmering on the surface of the gloomy pool.  Then the shadows and mist-wreaths hid it, and she was gone.

“Now, husband,” cried the cheerful voice of the captain, “yonder is your marriage bed, so be swift to follow a bride who is so ready to lead the way. Wow! but you are good people to kill; never have I had to do with any who gave less trouble.  You——­” and he stopped, for mental agony had done its work, and suddenly Nahoon went mad before his eyes.

With a roar like that of a lion the great man cast off those who held him and seizing one of them round the waist and thigh, he put out all his terrible strength.  Lifting him as though he had been an infant, he hurled him over the edge of the cliff to find his death on the rocks of the Pool of Doom.  Then crying:—­