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Updated: June 4, 2025
At first Swart Piet did not seem to feel the blows, but presently he awoke, as it were, and touched his cheeks where the sjambock had struck him as though to assure himself that he was not dreaming some evil dream. Then he spoke in a hollow, unnatural voice. "You have won for this time, Ralph Kenzie," he said, "or, rather, Fate fighting for you has won.
When I saw you and loved you I became half mad before that I was sane and when the Englishman, Kenzie, struck me with the whip after our fight at the sheep-kraal, ah! then I went wholly mad, and see how wisely, for you are the first-fruits of my madness, you and the body that to-night rolls to and fro in the ocean.
"Friend," said Jan, "you have all of you heard the story of how that outcast devil Piet Van Vooren, stole away my only child, Suzanne, the wife of Ralph Kenzie the Englishman here." "That is an old tale," said the commandant, "and, doubtless, the poor girl is dead long ago; why then do you speak of it now, and what has it to do with your request that we should trek to the mountain Umpondwana?"
It seems that the boy, who gave his name as Ralph Kenzie, though I believe that really it was Ralph Mackenzie, was travelling with his father and mother and many others from a country called India, which is one of those places that the English have stolen in different parts of the world, as they stole the Cape and Natal and all the rest.
"I cannot do it," moaned Suzanne. "Let us die together." Now Sihamba crept to her and whispered in her ear: "Think of Ralph Kenzie and of what his life must be if you should die. Think of those children who will come, and of that first kiss of love found again which you must miss in death, whatever else it may have to give.
The slaves gave me meal and some flesh with it, and I learned in talk with them that the Heer Botmar, his vrouw, his daughter Suzanne and the young Englishman, Heer Kenzie, all rode away yesterday to the christening party of the first-born of the Heer Roozen, who lives about five hours on horseback to the north yonder.
We have taken him in as a gift of the Lord. He says that his name is Rolf Kenzie." "You see the date," I said. "Yes," answered the lawyer, "and it has not been altered!"
You came here about Ralph Kenzie, did you not, and my mother told you that he is not the man whom you seek, did she not?" The lawyer nodded. "Well, I tell you that all this tale is false, for he is the very man," and she poured out the true story of Ralph and of the plot that had been made to deceive them about him.
"Is it of a lamb, then, that you come to talk, Heer Kenzie, a ewe lamb, the only one of your flock?" sneered Piet, for he had a gun in his hand and he saw that Ralph had none. "Aye," said Ralph, "it is of a white ewe lamb whose fleece has been soiled by a bastard thief who would have stolen her," and he looked at him.
It was the voice of Sihamba that broke the spell, and it issued from her parched throat with a sound like the sound of a death-rattle. "Ah! devil and torturer," it said, "did I not tell you that doom was at hand? Welcome, Ralph Kenzie, husband of Swallow." Then with a roar like that of a wounded beast, Ralph sprang forward, in his hand the uplifted spear.
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