The Vrouw Prinsloo reached the body that lay upon the ground dressed in what resembled my clothes, and bending down her stout shape with an effort, turned it over.  She glared into its face and then began to shriek.

“Come here, Henri Marais,” she shrieked, “come, see what your beloved nephew has done!  You had a daughter who was all your life to you, Henri Marais.  Well, come, look at her after your beloved nephew has finished his work with her!”

Henri Marais advanced slowly like one who does not understand.  He stood over the body on the ground, and looked down upon it through the morning mists.

Then suddenly he went mad.  His broad hat fell from his head, and his long hair seemed to stand up.  Also his beard grew big and bristled like the feathers of a bird in frosty weather.  He turned on Hernan Pereira.  “You devil!” he shouted, and his voice sounded like the roar of a wild beast; “you devil, you have murdered my daughter!  Because you could not get Marie for yourself, you have murdered her.  Well, I will pay you back!”

Without more ado he lifted his gun and fired straight at Hernan Pereira, who sank slowly to the ground and lay there groaning.

Just then I grew aware that horsemen were advancing upon us, a great number of horsemen, though whence they came at that time I did not know.  One of these I recognised even in my half-drunken state, for he had impressed himself very vividly upon my mind.  He was the dark-browed commandant who had tried and condemned me to death.  He dismounted, and, staring at the two figures that lay upon the ground, said in a loud and terrible voice: 

“What is this?  Who are these men, and why are they shot?  Explain, Henri Marais.”

“Men!” wailed Henri Marais, “they are not men.  One is a woman—­my only child; and the other is a devil, who, being a devil, will not die.  See! he will not die.  Give me another gun that I may make him die.”

The commandant looked about him wildly, and his eye fell upon the Vrouw Prinsloo.

“What has chanced, vrouw?” he asked.

“Only this,” she replied in a voice of unnatural calm.  “Your murderers whom you set on in the name of law and justice have made a mistake.  You told them to murder Allan Quatermain for reasons of your own.  Well, they have murdered his wife instead.”

Now the commandant struck his hand upon his forehead and groaned, and I, half awakened at last, ran forward, shaking my fists and gibbering.

“Who is that?” asked the commandant.  “Is it a man or a woman?”

“It is a man in woman’s clothing; it is Allan Quatermain,” answered the vrouw, “whom we drugged and tried to hide from your butchers.”

“God above us!” exclaimed the commandant, “is this earth or hell?”

Then the wounded Pereira raised himself upon one hand.