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
There beneath her, within a few paces indeed, for the ground sloped
steeply to the stream, men were passing. The first of these was white,
and he carried a white woman in his arms; the rest were Kaffirs, some
of whom wore karosses or cotton blankets, and some tattered soldiers’
coats and trousers, while all were well armed with “_roers_” or other
guns, and had powder flasks hung about their necks. Sihamba knew at
once that the white man was Swart Piet, and the woman in his arms her
mistress, Suzanne. She could have told it from her shape alone, but as
it happened, her head hung down, and the moonlight shone upon her face
so brightly that she could see its every feature. Her blood boiled in
her as she looked, for now she understood that her fears were just, and
that the Swallow whom she loved above everything in the world, had
fallen into the power of the man she hated. At first she was minded to
follow, and if might be, to rescue her. Then she remembered the
pistol-shot, and remembered also that this new-made wife would have
been with her husband and no other. Where, then, was he now? Without
doubt, murdered by Bull-Head. If so, it was little use to look for him,
and yet something in her heart told her to look.
At that moment she might not help Suzanne, for what could one woman and
a Kaffir youth do against so many men? Moreover, she knew whither Van
Vooren would take her, and could follow there, but first she must learn
for certain what had been the fate of the Baas Ralph her husband. So
Sihamba lay still beneath the two tufts of grass until the last of the
men had passed in silence, glancing about them sullenly as though they
feared vengeance for a crime. Then, having noted that they were heading
for the kloof, she went back to where Zinti stood in the hollow holding
the horse with one hand and the mule with the other, and beckoned him
to follow her.
Very soon, tracing the spoor backwards, they reached the edge of the
cliff just where the waterfall fell over it into the sea pool. Here she
searched about, noting this thing and that, till at last all grew clear
to her. Yonder Suzanne had lain, for the impress of her shape could
still be seen upon the grass. And there a man had been stretched out,
for his blood stained the ground. More, he had been dragged to the edge
of the cliff, for this was the track of his body and the spoor of his
murderer’s feet. Look how his heels had sunk into the turf as he took
the weight of the corpse in his arms to hurl it over the edge.
“Tie the horse and the mule together, Zinti,” she said, “and let us
find a path down this precipice.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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