When the boy, returning, got within about fifty yards of the fire, his desert-tuned ear caught a sinister sound of low growling. He dropped the vessel of water and the firebrand, and rushed forward, bursting through the fringe of bushes. There, full in the firelight, crouched a great, tawny lioness, roughly pawing the cubs. In an instant his rifle was at his shoulder; the lioness sprang into the air and fell back dead, shot through the heart.
The boy and the fire were the only living things in the firelit circle. Fourie was lying, his neck terribly lacerated, in a pool of blood. The girl lay on her face, absolutely still. The cubs had been mangled to death through the efforts of the mother to set them free.
He could not believe the girl to be dead. Thinking she had fainted from terror, he lifted her in his arms. Her head fell back, horribly limp. Her neck had been broken by a stroke from the lioness’s paw.
When the boy awakened from his swoon a figure was standing near him. It was that of the old man of the Baiala. The boy sat up and tried to think. Then, with a lamentable cry, he sprang up and lifted the corpse of the girl in his arms. The head again fell back, the loosened wealth of burnished hair flowing like a cataract to the ground. The old waif of the desert stole silently away.
Later the old man returned, this time accompanied by two others. He touched the boy, who sat stupidly gazing at his dead, on the shoulder. The boy looked up with haggard, deathlike face, and the wholesome human sympathy of the old man’s regard loosened the frightful tension of his soul. He fell into a paroxysm of tears.
After a while the old man again touched him on the shoulder and pointed westward, in the direction of the camp. Then, with a sweep of the hand to indicate that he would return, he melted into the darkness. The two other Baiala remained behind, close at hand, and tended the fire.
It was noon when the Reefer arrived. The ground was soft, so it did not take his practised arm long to dig a deep grave. In this they reverently laid the bodies of the girl and her father. At their feet were placed the dead cubs, for showing mercy to which such dire requital was dealt by that inscrutable power which so often chastises men for their virtuous deeds, and rewards them lavishly for their sins. Heavy stones were carried from the river terrace close by and placed in such a way that the resting-place could not be disturbed.
A few days afterwards the oxen returned, so the wagon, with its sad passengers, went back to the dead man’s farm. The boy accompanied it and, after relating what had happened (which was regarded by all in the neighbourhood as the direct and unmistakable judgment of Heaven upon irreligion), he wandered forth once more, this time to be for ever a stranger among the sons and daughters of men.