The marriage morning of Ralph and Suzanne broke brightly; never have I seen a fairer. It was spring time, and the veldt was clothed with the fresh green grass and starred everywhere with the lily blooms that sprang among it. The wind blew softly, shaking down the dewdrops from the growing corn, while from every bush and tree came the cooing of unnumbered doves. Beneath the eave of the stoep the pair of red-breasted swallows which had built there for so many years were finishing their nest, and I watched them idly, for to me they were old friends, and would wheel about my head, touching my cheek with their wings. Just then they paused from their task, or perhaps it was at length completed, and flying to a bough of the peach tree a few yards away, perched there together amidst the bright bloom, and nestling against each other, twittered forth their song of joy and love.
It was at this moment that Sihamba walked up to the stoep as though to speak to me.
"The Swallow and the Swallow's mate," she said, following my eyes to where the little creatures swung together on the beautiful bough.
"Yes," I answered, for her fancy seemed to me of good omen, "they have built their nest, and now they are thanking God before they begin to live together and rear their young in love."
As the words left my lips a quick shadow swept across the path of sunlit ground before the house, two strong wings beat, and a brown hawk, small but very fierce, being of a sort that preys upon small birds, swooped downwards upon the swallows. One of them saw it, and slid from the bough, but the other the hawk caught in its talons, and mounted with it high into the air. In vain did its mate circle round it swiftly, uttering shrill notes of distress; up it went steadily as pitiless as death.
"Oh! my swallow," I cried aloud in grief, "the accursed hawk has carried away my swallow."
"Nay, look," said Sihamba, pointing upwards.
I looked, and behold! a black crow that appeared from behind the house, was wheeling about the hawk, striking at it with its beak until, that it might have its talons free to defend itself, it let go the swallow, which, followed by its mate, came fluttering to the earth, while the crow and the falcon passed away fighting, till they were lost in the blue depths of air.
Springing from the stoep I ran to where the swallow lay, but Sihamba was there before me and had it in her hands.