So it came about that at the time when Ralph and Suzanne were surprised by Swart Piet, Sihamba was riding along quietly upon the horse which Jan had given her, accompanied by the lad Zinti, perched on the strong brown mule in the midst of cooking pots, bags of meal, biltong, and rolls of blankets.

Already, half a mile off or more, she could see the cap of the waggon gleaming white in the moonlight, when suddenly away to the left they heard the sound of a pistol shot.
"Now who shoots in this lonely place at night ?" said Sihamba to Zinti.
"Had the sound come from the waggon yonder I should think that someone had fired to scare a hungry jackal, but all is quiet at the waggon, and the servants of Swallow are there, for, look, the fire burns." "I know not, lady," answered Zinti, for Sihamba was given the title of Chieftainess among the natives who knew something of her birth, "but I am sure that the sound was made by powder." "Let us go and see," said Sihamba turning her horse.
For a while they rode on towards the place whence they had heard the shot, till, suddenly, when they were near the cliff and in a little fold of ground beyond the ridge of which ran the stream, Sihamba stopped and whispered, "Be silent, I hear voices." Then she slipped from her horse and crept like a snake up the slope of the rise until she reached its crest, where at this spot stood two tufts of last season's grass, for no fires had swept the veldt.

From between these tufts, so well hidden herself that unless they had stepped upon her body, none could have discovered her, she saw a strange sight.
There beneath her, within a few paces indeed, for the ground sloped steeply to the stream, men were passing.

The first of these was white, and he carried a white woman in his arms; the rest were Kaffirs, some of whom wore karosses or cotton blankets, and some tattered soldiers' coats and trousers, while all were well armed with "_roers_" or other guns, and had powder flasks hung about their necks.

Sihamba knew at once that the white man was Swart Piet, and the woman in his arms her mistress, Suzanne.