That it was true in the main we learned afterwards from the Kaffirs, a bit here and a bit there.  Indeed, one of our own people, while searching for Suzanne, found the body of Ralph’s mother and buried it.  He said that she was a tall and noble-looking lady, not much more than thirty years of age.  We did not dig her up again to look at her, as perhaps we should have done, for the Kaffir declared that she had nothing on her except some rags and two rings, a plain gold one and another of emeralds, with a device carved upon it, and in the pocket of her gown a little book bound in red, that proved to be a Testament, on the fly leaf of which was written in English, “Flora Gordon, the gift of her mother, Agnes Janey Gordon, on her confirmation,” and with it a date.

All these things the Kaffir brought home faithfully, also a lock of the lady’s fair hair, which he had cut off with his assegai.  That lock of hair labelled in writing—­remember it, Suzanne, when I am gone—­is in the waggon box which stands beneath my bed.  The other articles Suzanne here has, as is her right, for her grandfather settled them on her by will, and with them one thing which I forgot to mention.  When we undressed the boy Ralph, we found hanging by a gold chain to his neck, where he said his mother placed it the night before she died, a large locket, also of gold.  This locket contained three little pictures painted on ivory, one in each half of it and one with the plain gold back on a hinge between them.  That to the right was of a handsome man in uniform, who, Ralph told me, was his father (and indeed he left all this in writing, together with his will); that to the left, of a lovely lady in a low dress, who, he said, was his mother; that in the middle a portrait of the boy himself, as anyone could see, which must have been painted not more than a year before we found him.  This locket and the pictures my great-granddaughter Suzanne has also.

Now, as I have said, we let that unhappy lady lie in her rude grave yonder by the sea, but my husband took men and built a cairn of stones over it and a strong wall about it, and there it stands to this day, for not long ago I met one of the folk from the Old Colony who had seen it, and who told me that the people that live in those parts now reverence the spot, knowing its story.  Also, when some months afterwards a minister came to visit us, we led him to the place and he read the Burial Service over the lady’s bones, so that she did not lack for Christian Burial.

Well, this wreck made a great stir, for many were drowned in it, and the English Government sent a ship of war to visit the place where it happened, but none came to ask us what we knew of the matter; indeed, we never learned that the frigate had been till she was gone again.  So it came about that the story died away, as such stories do in this sad world, and for many years we heard no more of it.