“There, Allan, there!”

It was done, and I was broken-hearted, and broken-hearted I must wander to the end.  Those who have endured my loss will know my sorrow; it cannot be written.  In such peace and at such an hour may I also die!

Yes, it is a sad story, but wander where we will about the world we can never go beyond the sound of the passing bell.  For me, as for my father before me, and for the millions who have been and who shall be, there is but one word of comfort.  “The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away.”  Let us, then, bow our heads in hope, and add with a humble heart, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

I buried her by her father’s side, and the weeping of the people who had loved her went up to heaven.  Even Indaba-zimbi wept, but I could weep no more.

On the second night from her burial I could not sleep.  I rose, dressed myself, and went out into the night.  The moon was shining brightly, and by its rays I shaped my course towards the graveyard.  I drew near silently, and as I came I thought that I heard a sound of moaning on the further side of the wall.  I looked over it.  Crouched by Stella’s grave, and tearing at its sods with her hands, as though she would unearth that which lay within, was Hendrika.  Her face was wild and haggard, her form was so emaciated that when the pelts she wore slipped aside, the shoulder-blades seemed to project almost through her skin.  Suddenly she looked up and saw me.  Laughing a dreadful maniac laugh, she put her hand to her girdle and drew her great knife from it.  I thought that she was about to attack me, and prepared to defend myself as I best could, for I was unarmed.  But she made no effort to do so.  Lifting the knife on high, for a moment she held it glittering in the moonlight, then plunged it into her own breast, and fell headlong to the ground.

I sprang over the wall and ran to her.  She was not yet dead.  Presently she opened her eyes, and I saw that the madness had gone out of them.

“Macumazahn,” she said, speaking in English and in an thick difficult voice like one who half forgot and half remembered—­“Macumazahn, I remember now.  I have been mad.  Is she really dead, Macumazahn?”

“Yes,” I said, “she is dead, and you killed her.”

“I killed her!” the dying woman faltered, “and I loved her.  Yes, yes, I know now.  I became a brute again and dragged her to the brutes, and now once more I am a woman, and she is dead, and I killed her—­because I loved her so.  I killed her who saved me from the brutes.  I am not dead yet, Macumazahn.  Take me and torture me to death, slowly, very slowly.  It was jealousy of you that drove me mad, and I have killed her, and now she never can forgive me.”

“Ask forgiveness from above,” I said, for Hendrika had been a Christian, and the torment of her remorse touched me.

“I ask no forgiveness,” she said.  “May God torture me for ever, because I killed her; may I become a brute for ever till she comes to find me and forgives me!  I only want her forgiveness.”  And wailing in an anguish of the heart so strong that her bodily suffering seemed to be forgotten, Hendrika, the Baboon-woman, died.