"Come on," shouted the man called Ishmael. "It is only one of the fugitives whom they are killing."
But Rachel did nothing of the sort; she pulled up her horse and waited. The girl caught sight of her and with a wild hoarse scream, redoubled her efforts, so that her pursuer, who had been quite close, was left behind. She reached Rachel and flung her arms about her legs gasping: "Save me, white lady, save me!"
"Shoot her if she won't leave go," shouted Ishmael, "and come on."
But Rachel only sprang from the horse and stood face to face with the advancing Zulu.
"Stand," she said, and the man stopped.
"Now," she asked, "what do you want with this woman?"
"To take her or to kill her," gasped the soldier.
"By whose order?"
"By order of Dingaan the King," "For what crime?"
"Witchcraft; but who are you who question me, white woman?"
"One whom you must obey," answered Rachel proudly. "Go back and leave the girl. She is mine."
The man stared at her, then laughed aloud and began to advance again.
"Go back," repeated Rachel.
He took no heed but still came on.
"Go back or die," she said for the third time.
"I shall certainly die if I go back to Dingaan without the girl," replied the soldier who was a bold-looking savage. "Now you, Noie, will you return with me or shall I kill you? Say, witch," and he lifted his assegai.
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 spirit, and the two horses, one with its ears pricked in curiosity, and the other already cropping grass.