"Why?" she asked simply. "What others could I speak? Would you have me
do outrage to my own heart and go through life faithless and ashamed?"

"And I, I swear also," I broke in.

"Nay, swear nothing. While I live I know that you will love me, and if
I should be taken, it is my wish that you should marry some other good
woman, since it is not well or right that man should live alone. With
us maids it is different. Listen, Allan, for the cocks are beginning to
crow, and soon there will be light. You must bide here with your
father. If possible, I will write to you from time to time, telling you
where we are and how we fare. But if I do not write, know that it is
because I cannot, or because I can find no messenger, or because the
letters have miscarried, for we go into wild countries, amongst
savages."

"Whither do you go?" I asked.

"I believe up towards the great harbour called Delagoa Bay, where the
Portuguese rule. My cousin Hernan, who accompanies us"--and she
shivered a little in my arms--"is half Portuguese. He tells the Boers
that he has relations there who have written him many fine promises,
saying they will give us good country to dwell in where we cannot be
followed by the English, whom he and my father hate so much."

"I have heard that is all fever veld, and that the country between is
full of fierce Kaffirs," I said with a groan.

"Perhaps. I do not know, and I do not care. At least, that is the