"Because you are myself and more than myself. If anything happened to
you, what would my life be to me?"

"I don't quite understand, Allan," she replied, staring down at the
floor. "Tell me, what do you mean?"

"Mean, you silly girl," I said; "what can I mean, except that I love
you, which I thought you knew long ago."

"Oh!" she said; "_now_ I understand." Then she raised herself upon her
knees, and held up her face to me to kiss, adding, "There, that's my
answer, the first and perhaps the last. Thank you, Allan dear; I am
glad to have heard that, for you see one or both of us may die soon."

As she spoke the words, an assegai flashed through the window-place,
passing just between our heads. So we gave over love-making and turned
our attention to war.

Now the light was beginning to grow, flowing out of the pearly eastern
sky; but no attack had yet been delivered, although that one was
imminent that spear fixed in the plaster of the wall behind us showed
clearly. Perhaps the Kaffirs had been frightened by the galloping of
horses through their line in the dark, not knowing how many of them
there might have been. Or perhaps they were waiting to see better where
to deliver their onset. These were the ideas that occurred to me, but
both were wrong.

They were staying their hands until the mist lifted a little from the
hollow below the stead where the cattle kraals were situated, for while