It was at the end of our talk, as she was handing me back the pistol that I had given her for a certain dreadful purpose.
"Three times you have saved my life, Allan--once at Maraisfontein, once from starvation, and now from Dingaan, whose touch would have meant my death.

I wonder whether it will ever be my turn to save yours ?" She looked down for a little while, then lifted her head and laid her hand upon my shoulder, adding slowly: "Do you know, Allan, I think that it will at the--" and suddenly she turned and left me with her sentence unfinished.
So thus it came about that by the help of Providence I was enabled to rescue all these worthy folk from a miserable and a bloody death.

And yet I have often reflected since that if things had gone differently; if, for instance, that king aasvogel had found strength to carry itself away to die at a distance instead of soaring straight upwards like a towering partridge, as birds injured in the lungs will often do--I suppose in search of air--it might have been better in the end.

Then I should certainly have shot Dingaan dead and every one of us would as certainly have been killed on the spot.

But if Dingaan had died that day, Retief and his companions would never have been massacred.