Swallow: A Tale of the Great TrekHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
History
Swallow: A Tale of the Great Trek
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Historical fiction; South Africa -- History -- Great Trek, 1836-1840 -- Fiction; Transvaal (South Africa) -- Fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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