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Still they galloped forward till they reached a more broken stretch of veldt, where trees grew singly, and here and there were kloofs with bush in them. "Mistress," cried Zinti, "my horse can go no more, and Bull-Head is hard upon us. Of your wisdom tell me what I should do or presently I must be killed."
Now hear what Zinti has to say as to the path of Bull-Head's den and begone, forgetting no one of my words, for if you linger or forget, when I come again I, Sihamba, will blind your eyes and shrivel your livers with a spell." "We hear you," they answered, "and remember every word of your message. In three hours the Baas shall know it."
"But be silent, I hear Bull-Head coming on his horse," and she began to work very hard at cutting the wands. A few minutes later Zinti saw Swart Piet himself ride up to the women, who saluted him, calling him "Chief" and "Husband." "You are idle," he said, eyeing them angrily. "These wands are tough to cut, husband," murmured the young woman in excuse.
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.
To his house he has not taken her, for other white folk are living in it, and it is not likely he would have a second, or a better hiding-place than that you saw. I say that we must be bold and risk it since we have no time to lose." "As you will, mistress," answered Zinti.
Led by this same driver I walked to the edge of the cliff for I had never visited the place before and looked at the deep sea-pool, forty feet below me, into which Swart Piet had thrown Ralph after he had shot him. Also I went down to the edge of the pool and climbed up again by the path along which Zinti and Sihamba had staggered with his senseless body.
When the herd Zinti had heard this talk he crept away, heading straight for the farm, but his foot was so bad, and he was so weak from want of food, that he could only travel at the pace of a lame ox, now hopping upon one leg and now crawling upon his knees.
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.
But she sent for Zinti, and bade him cross the Quathlamba by a little-used pass that was known to her near the place where the Tugela takes its rise, and which to-day is called Mont aux Sources, and following the river down, to find out whether or no it was true that white men were encamped upon its banks.
Still, as she knew that this could not be counted on, she tried to let us have tidings of her, for when she had been only a week on the mountain Umpondwana she despatched Zinti and two men to bear him company, with orders to travel back over all the hundreds of miles of veldt to the far-off stead in the Transkei.
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