The girl sank in a heap upon the veld. "Kill," she murmured faintly, "I
will not go back. I did not bewitch him to make him dream of me, and I
will be Death's wife, not his; a ghost in his kraal, not a woman."

"Good," said the man, "I will carry your word to the king. Farewell,
Noie," and he raised the assegai still higher, adding: "Stand aside, white
woman, for I have no order to kill you also."

By way of answer Rachel put the gun to her shoulder and pointed it at him.

"Are you mad?" shouted Ishmael. "If you touch him they will murder every
one of us. Are you mad?"

"Are you a coward?" she asked quietly, without taking her eyes off the
soldier. Then she said in Zulu, "Listen. The land on this side of the
Tugela has been given by Dingaan to the English. Here he has no right to
kill. This girl is mine, not his. Come one step nearer and you die."

"We shall soon see who will die," answered the warrior with a laugh, and
he sprang forward.

They were his last words. Rachel aimed and pressed the trigger, the gun
exploded heavily in the mist; the Zulu leapt into the air and fell upon
his back, dead. The white man, Ishmael, rode to them, pulled up his horse
and sat still, staring. It was a strange picture in that lonely, silent
spot. The soldier so very still and dead, his face hidden by the shield
that had fallen across it; the tall, white girl, rigid as a statue, in
whose hand the gun still smoked, the delicate, fragile Kaffir maiden
kneeling on the veld, and looking at her wildly as though she were a