“But, lady, this was not all the dream, for it said that if you, the Swallow, should set your face southward with us then the best of luck would turn to the worst, for then utter misfortune should overwhelm me and my regiments.  Now, lady, I cannot doubt that as the first part of the prophecy has come true, so the last part would come true also did I tempt the spirits of my ancestors by disregarding it, and, therefore, White Swallow, though all I have is yours, yet you cannot fly home with us.”

Now Suzanne pleaded with him long and earnestly, as did Sihamba, but without avail, for he could not be moved.  Indeed, had he consented the captains and the army would have disobeyed his order in this matter, for they believed, every man of them, that to take the Swallow with them homewards would be to run to their own deaths.  Nor was it safe that she should attempt to follow in the path of the impi, since then in their superstitious fear they might send back and kill her to avert the evil fate.

“Now, Swallow,” said Sihamba, “there is but one thing for us to do, and it is to seek refuge among my people, the Umpondwana, whose mountain stronghold lies at a distance of four days’ journey from this place.  But to speak truth, I am not sure how they will receive me, seeing that I parted from them in anger twelve years ago, having quarrelled with them, first about a matter of policy, and secondly about a matter of marriage, and that my half-brother, the son of my father by a slave, was promoted to rule in my place.  Still to them we must go, and with them we must stay, if they will suffer it, until we find an opportunity of travelling south in safety.”

“If it must be so,” answered Suzanne, sighing, “perhaps Sigwe will escort us to the house of the Umpondwana before he turns homewards, for they will think the more of us if they see us at the head of a great army.”

To this plan Sigwe and his captains assented with gladness, for they loved and honoured the Swallow, and were sore at heart because their fears forced them to leave her alone in the wilderness.  But first they made sure that the mountain Umpondwana lay to the west, and not to the south, for not one step to the southward would they allow Suzanne to travel with them.

On the morrow, then, they marched, and the evening of the third day they set their camp in a mountain pass which led to a wide plain.  Before sunrise next morning Sihamba woke Suzanne.

“Dress yourself, Swallow,” she said, “and come to see the light break on the house of my people.”

So they went out in the grey dawn, and climbing a koppie in the mouth of the pass, looked before them.  At first they could distinguish nothing, for all the plain beneath was a sea of mist through which in the distance loomed something like a mountain, till presently the rays of the rising sun struck upon it and the veils of vapour parted like curtains that are drawn back, and there before them was the mountain-fortress of Umpondwana separated from the pass by a great space of mist-clad plain.  Suzanne looked and knew it.