Indeed I, who watched him, believe that this would
have been so, or else his brain must have burst beneath
its shock of sorrow, had not nature been kind to him
and plunged him back into stupor. In this he lay
long, until well on into the morrow indeed, or rather
the day, for by now it was three o’clock, when
the doctor came to take out the pistol ball and set
his shattered bone. For, as it chanced, a doctor,
and a clever one, had been sent for from the dorp
to visit the wife of a neighbour who lay sick not
more than twenty miles away, and we were able to summon
him. Indeed but for this man’s skill, the
sleeping medicines he gave him to quiet his mind,
and, above all, a certain special mercy which shall
be told of in its place, I think that Ralph would
have died. As it was, seven long weeks went by
before he could sit upon a horse.
THE HIDDEN KRANTZ
Before the waggon left her, Sihamba took from it Ralph’s
gun, a very good roer, together with powder
and bullets. Also she took tinder, a bottle of
peach-brandy, a blanket, mealies in a small bag, wherewith
to bait the horses in case of need, and some other
things which she thought might be necessary.
These she laded among her own goods upon the mule
that with her horse had been fetched by Zinti and hastily
fed with corn. Now, at her bidding, Zinti set
Suzanne’s saddle upon the back of the schimmel,
and Ralph’s on that of Suzanne’s grey mare,
which he mounted that the mule might travel lighter.
Then Sihamba got upon her own horse, a good and quiet
beast which she rode with a sheepskin for a saddle,
and they started, Sihamba leading the schimmel
and Zinti the mule that, as it chanced, although bad
tempered, would follow well on a riem.
Riding up the kloof they soon reached the spot where
Van Vooren’s band had tethered their horses
and tracked the spoor of them with ease for so long
as the ground was soft. Afterwards when they reached
the open country, where the grass had been burnt off
and had only just begun to spring again, this became
more difficult, and at length, in that light, impossible.
Here they wasted a long time, searching for the hoof-marks
by the rays of the waning moon, only to lose them again
so soon as they were found.
“At this pace we shall take as long to reach
Bull-Head’s kraal as did the cow you followed,”
said Sihamba presently. “Say, now, can you
find the way to it?”
“Without a doubt, lady; Zinti never forgets
a road or a landmark.”
“Then lead me there as fast as may be.”
“Yes, lady, but Bull-Head may have taken the
Swallow somewhere else, and if we do not follow his
spoor how shall we know where he has hidden her?”
“Fool, I have thought of that,” she answered
angrily, “else should I have spent all this
time looking for hoof-marks in the dark? We must
risk it, I say. To his house he has not taken
her, for other white folk are living in it, and it
is not likely he would have a second, or a better
hiding-place than that you saw. I say that we
must be bold and risk it since we have no time to
lose.”
