Rachel made no answer, for she saw that talking was useless in such a case. Only she took Noie’s hand and pressed it in silent sympathy, until at length the poor girl, utterly outworn with agony and the fatigue of her long flight, fell asleep, there in the sunshine. Rachel let her sleep, knowing that she would take no harm in that warmth. Quietly she sat at her side for hour after hour while the fierce sun, from which she protected her head with seaweed, dried her garments. At length the shadows told her that midday was past, and the sea water which began to trickle over the surrounding rocks that the tide was approaching its full. They could stop there no longer unless they wished to be drowned. “Come,” she said to Noie, “the Zulus have gone, and the sea is here. We must swim to the shore and go back to my father’s camp.” “What place have I in your kraal, Lady?” asked the girl when her senses had returned to her. “I will find you a place,” Rachel answered; “you are mine now.” “Yes, Lady, that is true,” said Noie heavily, “I am yours and no one else’s,” and taking Rachel’s hand she pressed it to her forehead. Then together once more they swam the pool, and not too soon, for the tide was pouring into it. Reaching the shore in safety, no easy task for Rachel, who must hold the heavy gun above her head, Noie tied Rachel’s towel about her middle to take the place of her moocha, and very cautiously they crept up the kloof, fearing lest some of the Zulus might still be lurking in the neighbourhood. At length they came to the pool into which they had thrown the soldier Bomba, and saw two crocodiles, doubtless those that had eaten him, lying asleep in the sun upon flat rocks at its edge. Here they were obliged to leave the kloof both because they feared to pass the crocodiles, and for the reason that their road to the camp ran another way. So they climbed up the cliff and looked about, but could see only a pair of oribe bucks, one lying down under a tree, and one eating grass quite close to its mate. “The Zulus have gone or there would be no buck here,” said Rachel. “Come, now, hold the shield before you and the spear in your hand, to hide that you are a woman, and let us go on boldly.” So they went till they reached the crest of the next rise, and then sprang back behind it, for lying here and there they saw people who seemed to be asleep. “The Zulus resting!” exclaimed Rachel. “Nay,” answered the girl with a sigh. “My people, dead! See the vultures gathered round them.” Rachel looked again, and saw that it was so. Without a word they walked forward, and as they passed each body Noie gave it its name. Here lay a brother, there a sister, yonder four folk of her father’s kraal. They came to a tall and handsome woman of middle age, and she shivered as she had done in the pool and said in an icy voice: “The mother who bore me!”