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Updated: May 29, 2025
After this he crossed the drift, riding slowly and leading the mule, till shortly after sunrise he came to the outskirts of the town, where Sigwe's watchmen found him and brought him to the chief. "This man is a servant worth having," said Sigwe when he had heard the story. "Let food be given to him and to the beasts." When Zinti had gone Sigwe spoke to Suzanne.
With her, and holding her hand, came Suzanne, who covered the raggedness of her clothes beneath a splendid kaross of leopards' skins that Sigwe had given her, down which her dark hair flowed almost to her knee. A strange pair they made, the tall Suzanne in the first bloom of her white beauty which had suffered nothing in their journeying, and the small, quick-eyed, delicate-featured Kaffir woman.
"I swear by the spirits of my fathers, lady," answered Sigwe, "and these my counsellors and headmen swear it also." "Yes," echoed the counsellors, "we swear it, all of it, and while one of us is left alive the oath shall be fulfilled, O White Bird of good omen."
Then of a sudden it seemed as though space had no bars for her, for she awoke, or thought that she awoke, in the guest-hut of Sigwe, since she could hear the breathing of Sihamba at her side, and stretching out her hand she touched her face.
Then Sigwe told them of all the good fortune that had come to him through Suzanne, and of how wise had been the words of Sihamba, and told them, moreover, that if they dealt ill by either of them he would return from his own country and stamp them flat.
But on this matter, and this only, Sigwe would not listen to her, and though he gave many reasons for his refusal, the true one was that he feared lest the white men, on learning her whereabouts, should gather a commando and send it to take her from him, as doubtless we should have done had it been in any way possible.
"It is bad," answered Sihamba, "but had not yonder diviner dreamed that dream of a swallow, it would have been worse. Better is it to travel in all honour with the impis of Sigwe than to be dragged back by Bull-Head to his secret kraal I to be done to death there and you to the choice of which you know.
At their chief's bidding the soldiers of the guard sprang forward, and, falling upon Van Vooren and those with him, they flogged them with sticks and the shafts of their spears until from head to foot they were nothing but blood and bruises, and thus they drove them out of the town of Sigwe back to the ford of the Red River.
When the indaba was set Sigwe told them his name and tribe, of both of which they had heard, and then, before speaking of his business, asked which of them was the chief of the Umpondwana.
Now by this time Swart Piet, who, as Sigwe had said, understood the customs of the Kaffirs, knew very well that the chief was making excuses, and would not surrender Suzanne to him.
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