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Updated: May 22, 2025
At the foot of this writing, which he would not suffer to be altered, Jan printed his name in big letters; then he went out to seek the messenger, whom he found talking to Sihamba, and having given him the paper bade him begone swiftly to wherever it was he came from.
Accordingly northwards they rode, but they never found any traces of them, for rain had fallen, washing out their spoor, and as might be expected in that vast veldt they headed in the wrong direction. So at last worn out, they returned to the stead, hoping that Suzanne and Sihamba would have found their way back there, but hoping in vain.
Now at this story Suzanne, who had not smiled for days, laughed aloud, while even Sihamba the wise looked down studying the earth. But there was one who did not laugh, and it was the one-eyed woman.
Now I shivered a little, for in myself I was afraid of this woman's magic, but to her I laughed and said roughly: "What fool's plaything made of bits of broken glass is this that you have here, Sihamba?" "It is a plaything that will tell a story to those who can read it," she answered without anger, but like one who knows she speaks the truth.
Now Van Vooren went mad indeed; so mad that, forgetting he was not on the lonely veldt, he lifted his gun and fired straight at Sihamba. But her eye was quick, and seeing the muzzle rise, she threw herself upon the ground, so that the ball passed over her. "Why, Half-breed, have you even forgotten how to shoot?" she called, springing to her feet again and mocking him.
This we did, and there in the nest it stayed for some days, its mate feeding it with flies as though it were still unfledged. After that they vanished, both of them together, seeking some new home, nor did they ever build again beneath our eaves. "Would you speak with me, Sihamba?" I asked when this matter of the swallows was done with.
Indeed, when we joined them four days later, for after burying Sihamba Jan and I trekked round through the waggon pass, by the mercy of Heaven escaping the Zulus, they still lay prostrate on a cartel, clasping each other's hands and smiling, but speaking little.
I asked, adding, "I do not like such people about the place." "Let her bide also till the men come back, mother," she answered, "and then they will see to it. Meanwhile there is an empty hut down by the cattle kraal where she can live." So Sihamba stopped on and became a body servant to Suzanne, the best I ever saw, though she would do no other work save that of attending to sick animals.
"Now, Swallow," said Sihamba, "there is but one thing for us to do, and it is to seek refuge among my people, the Umpondwana, whose mountain stronghold lies at a distance of four days' journey from this place.
This woman Sihamba, who might have been a little over thirty years of age, had been living in our neighbourhood for some three or four years and practising as a doctoress. Not that she was a "black" doctoress, for she never took part in the "smelling-out" of human beings for witchcraft or in the more evil sort of rites.
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