light-coloured garment. Oh! once more we were alone together. Alone in
the utter solitude and silence which precede the African dawn, when all
creatures that love the night have withdrawn to their lairs and hiding
places, and those that love the day still sleep their soundest.

She saw me and stood still, then opened her arms and clasped me to her
breast, uttering no word. A while later she spoke almost in a whisper,
saying:

"Allan, I must not stay long, for I think that if my father found us
together, he would shoot you in his madness."

Now as always it was of me she thought, not of herself.

"And you, my sweet?" I asked.

"Oh!" she answered, "that matters nothing. Except for the sin of it I
wish he would shoot me, for then I should have done with all this pain.
I told you, Allan, when the Kaffirs were on us yonder, that it might be
better to die; and see, my heart spoke truly."

"Is there no hope?" I gasped. "Will he really separate us and take you
away into the wilderness?"

"Certainly, nothing can turn him. Yet, Allan, there is this hope. In
two years, if I live, I shall be of full age, and can marry whom I will;
and this I swear, that I will marry none but you, no, not even if you
were to die to-morrow."

"I bless you for those words," I said.