Now the man to whom he spoke, that same man with whom the boy Zinti had heard him plot our murder in the Tiger Kloof, shrugged his shoulders and answered: 

“I think there is one who will guess.”

“Who is that, fool?”

“She about whose neck I once set a rope at your bidding, Bull-Head, and whose life was bought by those lips,” and he pointed to Suzanne, “Sihamba Ngenyanga.”

“Why should she guess?” asked Piet angrily.

“Has she not done so before?  Think of the great schimmel and its rider in Tiger Kloof.  Moreover, what does her name mean?  Does it not mean ‘Wanderer-by-moonlight,’ and was not this great deed of yours a deed at the telling of which all who hear of it shall grow sick and silent, done in the moonlight, Bull-Head?”

Now as we learned afterwards from a man whom Jan took prisoner, and who told us everything which passed that night, hoping to buy his life, Piet made no answer to this saying, but turned to busy himself with his saddle, for, after his ill dealings with her, he was always afraid of Sihamba, and would never mention her name unless he was obliged.  Soon the horses, most of which were small and of the Basuto breed, were ready to start.  On one of the best of them there was a soft pad of sheepskins, such as girls used to ride on when I was young, before we knew anything about these new-fangled English saddles with leather hooks to hold the rider in her place.  On this pad, which had been prepared for her, they set Suzanne, having first tied her feet together loosely with a riem so that she might not slip to the ground and attempt to escape by running.  Moreover, as she was still in a swoon, they supported her, Black Piet walking upon one side and a Kaffir upon the other.  In this fashion they travelled for the half of an hour or more, until they were deep in among the mountains, indeed, when suddenly with a little sigh Suzanne awoke, and glanced about her with wide, frightened eyes.  Then memory came back to her, and she understood, and, opening her lips, she uttered one shriek so piercing and dreadful that the rocks of the hills multiplied and echoed it, and the blood went cold even in the hearts of those savage men.

“Suzanne,” said Swart Piet in a low, hoarse voice, “I have dared much to win you, and I wish to treat you kindly, but if you cry out again, for my own safety’s sake and that of those with me, we must gag you.”

She made no answer to him, nor did she speak at all except one word, and that word “Murderer.”  Then she closed her eyes as though to shut out the sight of his face, and sat silent, saying nothing and doing nothing, even when Piet and the other man who supported her had mounted and pushed their horses to a gallop, leading that on which she rode by a riem.