At his touch she uttered a wild scream, which pierced like a knife through the hearts of all that heard it.
“Suffer it not,” she cried, “oh! my people, suffer not that I be thus defiled.”
They rent him from her with blows and execrations, looking up to their chief for his word to tear him to pieces.
“No,” said Tamboosa, grimly, “he shall to the King to tell this story ere he die.”
“Save me, Rachel, save me,” he moaned. “You don’t know what they mean. I was mad with love for you, do not judge me harshly and send me to be tortured.”
This appeal of his seemed to pierce the darkness of her brain, and for a little while her face grew human.
“I judge not,” she answered in Zulu; “pray to the Great One above who judges. Oh! man, man,” she went on in a kind of eerie whisper, “what have I done to you that you should treat me thus? Why did you command the soldiers to kill my father and my mother? Why did you poison my lover? Why did you drive away my soul, and fill me with this madness? Take me away from this accursed town, Tamboosa, before Heaven’s vengeance falls on it, and let me see that face no more.”
Then some of them made a guard about her and led her thence, along the central street, and through the barricaded gates, that they broke down for her passage. They led her to a little cave in the slope of the opposing hill, for although no rain fell, the gathered storm was breaking; the lightning flashed thick and fast, the thunder groaned and bellowed, and a wild wind beat the screeching trees.
Here in the mouth of this cave Rachel sat herself down and looked at the kraal, Mafooti, awaiting she knew not what, while the impi pillaged the town, and Ishmael, already half dead with fear, remained bound to the roof-tree of the hut that had been her prison.
Whilst she waited thus, and watched, of a sudden one of the outer huts began to burn, though whether the lightning or some soldier had fired it none could tell. Then, in an instant, as it seemed, driven by the raging wind, the flame leapt from roof to roof till Mafooti was but a sheet of fire. The soldiers at their work of pillage saw, and rushed hither and thither, confusedly, for they did not know the paths, and were tangled in the fences.