Ralph laughed aloud and began to climb the pinnacle.  He might have waited till Jan, who was struggling up the pass after them, arrived with his gun, but he would not wait.  He had no fear of the man above and he was certain of the issue of the fray, for he knew that God is just.  As for that man above, he grinned and gibbered in his disappointed rage and the agony of his dread; yes, he stood there by the painted corpse and gibbered like an ape.

“Your evil doing has not prospered over much, Piet Van Vooren,” called Ralph, “and presently when you are dead you will taste the fruits of it.  Suzanne shall be mine till the end as she was mine from the beginning, but look upon the Death-wife that your wickedness has won,” and he pointed at the body with his spear.

Black Piet made no answer, nor did Ralph speak any more, for he must set himself to finish his task.  The Boer took a heavy stone and threw it at him, but it missed him and he could find no more.  Then gripping the wrist of the corpse in his left hand to steady himself upon that giddy place, he leant forward and prepared to stab Ralph with the knife as he set foot upon the platform.  Ralph saw his plan, and stopping in his climb, he took off his coat and wound it round his left arm as a shield.  Then he came on slowly, holding the broad spear in front of him.  At the last he made a rush and reached the flat space of rock.  Piet stabbed at him, but the strength of the thrust lost itself in the folds of the coat.

Now who can say what happened.  Round and round the rock chair they swung, Van Vooren still holding fast to the arm of the dead woman who was lashed in it.  Yes, even from where I stood five hundred feet below I could see the flash of spear and knife as they struck and struck again.

At length a blow went home; the Zulu assegai sank deep into Van Vooren’s chest and he hung backwards over the edge of the abyss, supported only by his grip of the dead arm—­from below it looked as though he were drawing the corpse to him against its will.  Yes, he hung back and groaned aloud.  Ralph looked at him and laughed again, since though he was gentle-hearted, for this man he had no pity.  He laughed, and crying “That curse of God you mocked at falls at last,” with a sudden stroke he drew the sharp edge of the spear across the lashing that held the body to the seat.

The rimpi parted, and with a swift and awful rush, like that of a swooping bird, the dead woman and the living man plunged headlong into space.  One dreadful yell echoed down the pitiless precipices, followed presently by a soft thudding sound, and there, lodged upon a flat rock hundreds of feet beneath, lay what had been Piet Van Vooren, though, indeed, none could have told that it was he.

Thus ended the life of this man, this servant of the devil upon earth, and even now, after all these years, I can find but one excuse for him, that the excess of his own wickedness had made him drunk and mad.  Yes, I believe that he who was always near to it, went quite mad when Ralph struck him with the whip after the fight by the sheep kraal, mad with hate of Ralph and love of Suzanne.  Also his father was wicked before him, and he had Kaffir blood in his veins.  Ah! for how much must our blood be called upon to answer, and how good is that man who can conquer the natural promptings of his blood!