“No, lady, I escaped, but I crossed the plain far to your left, for it seemed better that we should not be seen travelling together from the mountain. Now let us eat who have eaten little for so many days, lacking water to wash down the food,” and from the large skin wallet which he bore Zinti drew out dried flesh and roasted corn. Suzanne looked at the food with longing, but before she touched any she took some corn, and having pounded it into a pulp with a stone, she mixed it with water and fed the child, who devoured the stuff greedily and presently fell asleep. Then they ate as much as they wanted, since Zinti carried enough for three such meals, and never did Suzanne take meat with a greater relish. Afterwards, though she yearned to sleep, they pressed on again, for Zinti said it was not safe to stay, since long before this Van Vooren would be seeking her far and wide, and if he chanced to discover the secret of her flight he would travel further in one hour on horseback than they could in four on foot. So they went forward up the pass much refreshed, Zinti carrying the child. All day long they walked thus, resting at intervals, till by sunset they reached the crest of the pass, and saw the wide plains of Natal stretched out like a map beneath them, and on them, not so very far away and near to the banks of the river that wound at their feet, a white-topped koppie, beneath which, said Zinti, was the Boer camp. Suzanne sat down and looked, and there, yes, there the caps of the waggons gleamed in the fading light; and oh! her heart leapt at the sight of them, for in those waggons were white men and women such as she had not seen for years, and with whom at length she would be safe. But even as her breast heaved at the thought of it, an icy, unnatural wind seemed to stir her hair, and of a sudden she felt, or seemed to feel, the presence of Sihamba. For a moment, and one only, it was with her, then it was gone, nor during all her life did it ever come back again. “Oh! Sihamba is dead!” she cried. Zinti looked at her in question. “It may well be so,” he said sadly, “but I pray that it is not so, for she is the best of chieftainesses. At least we have our own lives to save, so let us go on,” and again they pressed forward through the gathering gloom. Soon it grew dark, and had her guide been any other man than Zinti Suzanne must have stopped where she was till the moon rose at midnight. But Zinti could find any path that his feet had trod even in the dark; yes, although it ran through piled-up rocks on the mountain side, and was cut with the course of streams which must be forded.