"Peter," she said gently, "when you and your companions were in the
hands of the Yellow Devil and about to be sold as slaves, who was it
that rescued you?"

"The Deliverer, Shepherdess."

"Yes. And now do my ears betray me, or do I hear you say that you and
your brethren, who with many another were saved from shame and toil by
the Deliverer, are about to leave him in his hour of danger?"

"You have heard aright, Shepherdess," the man answered sadly.

"It is well, Peter. Go, children of Mavoom, my father, who can desert me
in my need. For learn, Peter, that where you fear to tread, there I,
a white woman, will pass alone with the Deliverer. Go, children of my
father, and may peace go with you. Yet, as you know, I, who foretold
the doom of the Yellow Devil, am a true prophetess, and I tell you this,
that but a very few of you shall live to see your kraal again, and _you_
will not be of their number, Peter. As for those who come home safely,
their names shall be a mockery, the little children shall call them
coward, and traitor and jackal, and one by one they shall eat out
their hearts and die, because they deserted him who saved them from the
slave-ship and the scourge. Farewell, children of my father: may peace
go with you, and may his ghost not come to haunt you on your path," and
with one indignant glance she turned scornfully away.

"Brethren," said Peter after a moment's pause, "is it to be borne that
the Shepherdess should mock us thus and tie such ropes of shame about
our necks?"