"How, then, do you square this with all your fine talk?" I asked, thinking that at length I had trapped her. "If he had gone you must have lost him."
"Not so," she answered, innocently, "for I should have married him before he went, and then I could have been certain that he would return here whenever I wished it."
Now when I heard this I gasped, partly because the girl's cleverness took the breath from me, and partly with mortification that I should have lived to learn wisdom from the mouth of a babe and a suckling. For there was no doubt of it, this plan, of which I had not even thought, was the answer to the riddle, since by means of it Ralph might have kept his own, and we, I doubt not, should have kept Ralph. Once married to Suzanne he would have returned to her, or if she had gone with him for a little while, which might have been better, she would certainly have brought him back, seeing that she loved us and her home too well to forsake them.
Yes, I gasped, and the only answer that I could make when I reflected how little need there had been for the sin which we had sinned, was to burst into weeping, whereon Suzanne ran to me and kissed me and we made friends again. But all the same, I do not think that she ever thought quite so well of me afterwards, and if I thought the more of her, still I made up my mind that the sooner she was married and had a husband of her own to preach to, the better it would be for all of us.
Thus ended the story of the coming of the Englishmen, and of how Ralph lost his wealth and rank. We never heard or saw more of them, seeing that in those days before the great Trek we did not write letters, and if we had we should not have known where to send them, nor did the post-cart pass the door twice a week as it does in this overcrowded land of Natal.
Now I must go on to tell of the doings of that devil upon earth, Swart Piet, and of how the little Kaffir witch-doctoress, Sihamba Ngenyanga, which means She-who-walks-by-the-moonlight, became the slave and saviour of Suzanne.
At this time the Heer van Vooren, Swart Piet's father, had been dead for two years, and there were strange stories as to the manner of his death which I do not think it necessary to set out here. Whether or no Swart Piet did or did not murder his father I cannot say, nor does it matter, for at the least he worked other crimes as bad. After the death of the Heer van Vooren, however he may have chanced to die, this is certain, that Swart Piet inherited great riches as we used to reckon riches in those days; that is, he had vast herds of cattle and goats and sleep, some of which were kept for him by native chiefs far away, as much land as he wanted, and, it was said, a good sum in English gold. But he was a strange man, not like to other men, for he married no wife and courted no misses, that is until he took to courting Suzanne, and his only pleasure was to keep the company of Kaffir chiefs and women and to mix himself up with the devilments of the witch-doctors. Still, as every man has his fate, at last he fell in love with Suzanne, and in love with her he remained during all his wicked life, if that can be love which seeks to persecute and bring misery upon its object. It was just before the coming of the Englishmen that this passion of his manifested itself, for whenever he met the girl--outside the house for the most part, since Jan did not like to have him in it--he made sweet speeches and passed foolish pleasantries which, to be just, I am sure Suzanne never encouraged, since all her heart was elsewhere.