“One thing more I desire to say,” went on Colvin, holding up his hand as he noticed that the Commandant was about to give the signal. “Here, on the brink of the grave, I solemnly repeat I am being put to death for an act which I never committed. I do not say I would not have committed it had opportunity afforded, for the man was my friend. But I did not. I die the victim of false swearing.”
“You have refused our mercy, even at the twelfth hour,” said Schoeman. “So be it.”
He made a signal. Three men stepped forward, each slapping a cartridge into his rifle, confronting the doomed one at about twenty paces. In that dread and critical moment Colvin recognised two of them—Gideon Roux and Hermanus Delport. The third was unknown to him.
“Where is Adrian De la Rey?” he said, in a tone of good-humoured satire. “He should have been the third. It would have made the plot more complete.”
Up went the three rifles to the shoulder, then down again immediately. A gasp of horror arose—of dismay, amazement, consternation. Something had happened.
The doomed man no longer stood alone. Between him and the deadly, levelled weapons—screening him from them—stood a tall female figure, whose graceful lines were shrouded by a long cloak. Just a fraction of a second more, and the murderous bullets would have transpierced two bodies instead of one.
Among the onlookers the thrill of horror and amazement deepened as the hood was thrown back, revealing the head and features of the wearer, who was known to many of them. The countenance of the doomed man lighted up with a glow of such unutterable affection as to leave room for no other emotion.
“Aletta! So you have come to take leave of me!” he said. “My darling one, and yet the sight of you once more adds a hundredfold to the bitterness of death.”
“Of death? No, no, you shall not die, unless we both do. Not a bullet shall reach you that does not go through me first.”
She clung to him in such wise as to render the truth of her words obvious. The appointed executioners had lowered their weapons and stood irresolute, as though looking for orders.