“What is this? Who are these men, and why are they shot? Explain, Henri Marais.”
“Men!” wailed Henri Marais, “they are not men. One is a woman—my only child; and the other is a devil, who, being a devil, will not die. See! he will not die. Give me another gun that I may make him die.”
The commandant looked about him wildly, and his eye fell upon the Vrouw Prinsloo.
“What has chanced, vrouw?” he asked.
“Only this,” she replied in a voice of unnatural calm. “Your murderers whom you set on in the name of law and justice have made a mistake. You told them to murder Allan Quatermain for reasons of your own. Well, they have murdered his wife instead.”
Now the commandant struck his hand upon his forehead and groaned, and I, half awakened at last, ran forward, shaking my fists and gibbering.
“Who is that?” asked the commandant. “Is it a man or a woman?”
“It is a man in woman’s clothing; it is Allan Quatermain,” answered the vrouw, “whom we drugged and tried to hide from your butchers.”
“God above us!” exclaimed the commandant, “is this earth or hell?”
Then the wounded Pereira raised himself upon one hand.