“Of what use is my life? Ralph is dead, and I was about to take it that I may save myself from shame and go to seek him, for surely God will forgive the sin.”
Sihamba looked at her and said:
“Swallow, prepare yourself for great joy, and, above all, do not cry out. Your husband is not dead, he was but wounded, and I drew him living from the sea. He lies safe at the stead in your mother’s care.”
Suzanne heard her, and, notwithstanding the caution, still she would have cried aloud in the madness of her joy, had not Sihamba, seeing her lips opened, thrust her hands upon her mouth and held them there till the danger was past.
“You do not lie to me?” she gasped at length.
“Nay, I speak truth, I swear it. But this is no time to talk. Yonder stand food and milk; eat while I think.”
As Sihamba guessed, nothing but a little water had passed Suzanne’s lips since that meal which she and her husband took together beside the waggon, nor one minute before could she have swallowed anything had her life been the price of it. But now it was different, for despair had left her, and hope shone in her heart again, and behold! of a sudden she was hungry, and ate and drank with gladness, while Sihamba thought.
Presently the little woman looked up and whispered:
“A plan comes into my head; it is a strange one, but I can find no other, and it may serve our turn, for I think that good luck goes with us. Swallow, give me the noose of hide which you made from the riem that bound your feet.”
Suzanne obeyed her wondering, whereon Sihamba placed the noose about her own neck, then bade Suzanne stand upon the bed and thrust the end of the riem loosely into the thatch of the hut as high up as she could reach, so that it looked as though it were made fast there. Next, Sihamba slipped off her fur cloak, leaving herself naked except for the moocha round her middle, and, clasping her hands behind her back with the assegai between them, she drew the riem taut, and leaned against the wall of the hut after the fashion of one who is about to be pulled from the ground and strangled.