Now Suzanne uttered a low cry of fear and the blood froze about Ralph’s heart, for he was unarmed and their case was hopeless.  Black Piet saw their fear and laughed again, since like a cat that has caught a mouse for which it has watched long, he could not resist the joy of torture before he dealt the death blow.

“This is very lucky,” he said, “and I am glad that I have to do with such pious people, since it enabled us to creep on you unawares; also I much prefer to have found you engaged in prayer, friend Englishman, rather than in taking the bloom off my peach with kisses, as I feared might be the case.  That was a pretty prayer, too; I almost felt as though I were in church while I stood listening to it.  How did it end?  You prayed that you might be allowed to live together, fearing nothing, however great your peril, since you walked always in the shadow of God’s strength.  Well, I have come to answer your petition, and to tell you that your life together is ended before it is begun.  For the rest, your peril is certainly great, and now let God’s strength help you if it can.  Come, God, show Your strength.  He does not answer, you see, or perhaps He knows that Swart Piet is god here and is afraid.”

“Cease your blasphemy,” said Ralph in a hoarse voice, “and tell me what you want with us.”

“What do I want?  I want her whose scorn and beauty have driven me mad, her for whom I have been seeking this long time—­Suzanne Botmar.”

“She is my wife,” said Ralph; “would you steal away my wife?”

“No, friend, for that would not be lawful.  I will not take your wife, but I shall take your widow, as will be easy, seeing that you are armed with God’s strength only.”

Now understanding all this man’s devilish purpose, Suzanne fell upon her knees before him, imploring him with many piteous words.  But knowing that death was at hand Ralph’s heart rose to it, as that of a high-couraged man will do, and he bade her to cease her supplications and rise.  Then in a loud, clear voice he spoke in the Kaffir tongue, so that those who were with Piet Van Vooren should understand him.

“It seems, Piet Van Vooren,” he said, “that you have stolen upon us here to carry off my wife by violence after you have murdered me.  These crimes you may do, though I know well that if you do them they will be revenged upon you amply, and upon you men also who take part in them.  And now I will not plead to you for mercy, but I ask one thing which you cannot refuse, because those with you, Kaffirs though they be, will not suffer it—­five short minutes of time in which to bid farewell to my new-wed wife.”

“Not an instant,” said Swart Piet, but at the words the black men who were with him, and whose wicked hearts were touched with pity, began to murmur so loudly, that he hesitated.

“At your bidding, Bull-Head,” said one of them, “we have come to kill this man and to carry away the white woman, and we will do it, for you are our chief and we must obey you.  But, if you will not give him the little space for which he asks, wherein to bid farewell to his wife before she becomes your wife, then we will have nothing more to do with the matter.  I say that our hearts are sick at it already, and, Bull-Head, you kill a man, not a dog, and that by murder, not in fair fight.”