“Oh! Allan, what will be the end of this?” she asked piteously. High as was her courage it seemed to fail her now.
“A good end, dearest,” I answered. “We shall come out of this hole safely, as we have of many others.”
“How do you know that, Allan, which is known to God alone?”
“Because God told me, Marie,” and I repeated to her the story of the voice I had heard in my dream, which seemed to comfort her.
“Yet, yet,” she exclaimed doubtfully, “it was but a dream, Allan, and dreams are such uncertain things. You may fail, after all.”
“Do I look like one who will fail, Marie?”
She studied me from head to foot, then answered:
“No, you do not, although you did when you came back from the king’s huts. Now you are quite changed. Still, Allan, you may fail, and then—what? Some of those dreadful Zulus have been here while you were sleeping, bidding us all make ready to go to the Hill of Death. They say that Dingaan is in earnest. If you do not kill the vultures, he will kill us. It seems that they are sacred birds, and if they escape he will think he has nothing to fear from the white men and their magic, and so will make a beginning by butchering us. I mean the rest of us, for I am to be kept alive, and oh! what shall I do, Allan?”
I looked at her, and she looked at me. Then I took the double-barrelled pistol out of my pocket and gave it to her.
“It is loaded and on the half-cock,” I said.