WHAT PASSED IN THE HUT

Going on to her hands and knees Sihamba crawled towards the hut. Now she
was within ten paces of it and could see that a man stood on guard at
its doorway. "I must creep round to the back," she thought, and began to
do so, heading for some shrubs which grew to the right. Already she had
almost reached them, when of a sudden, and for an instant only, the moon
shone out between two thick clouds, revealing her, though indistinctly,
to the eyes of the guard. Now Sihamba was wearing a fur cape made of
wild dog's hide, and, crouched as she was upon her hands and knees,
half-hidden, moreover, by a tuft of dry grass, the man took her to be
a wild dog or a jackal, and the hair which stood out round her head for
the ruff upon the animal's neck.

"Take that, you four-legged night thief," he said aloud, and hurled the
assegai in his hand straight at her. The aim was good; indeed, had she
been a dog it would have transfixed her. As it was, the spear passed
just beneath her body, pinning the hanging edges of the cape and
remaining fixed in the tough leather. Now if Sihamba's wit had left her,
as would have happened with most, she was lost, but not for nothing had
she been a witch-doctoress from her childhood, skilled in every artifice
and accustomed to face death. From his words she guessed that the sentry
had mistaken her for a wild beast, so instead of springing to her feet
she played the part of one, and uttering a howl of pain scrambled
away among the bushes. She heard the man start to follow her, then the
moonlight went out and he returned to his post grumbling over his lost
assegai and saying that he would find it in the jackal's body on the
morrow. Sihamba, listening not far away, knew his voice; it was that of
the fellow who had set the noose about her neck at Swart Piet's bidding
and who was to have done the murder in the pass.