For an instance she was frightened, but as she lifted the hammer of the second barrel her constitutional courage returned.
"Let him try it," she thought to herself. "If he had come ten minutes ago it would have been awful, but now I don't care."
By this time Mr. Ishmael had arrived, and was dragging his horse to its haunches; also she saw that evidently he was much more frightened than she had been. The man's handsome face was quite white, and his lips were trembling. "Perhaps that rhinoceros is after him again, thought Rachel, then added aloud quietly: "What is the matter?"
"Forgive me," he answered in a rich, and to Rachel's astonishment, perfectly educated voice, "forgive me for disturbing you. I am ashamed, but it is necessary. The Zulus--" and he paused.
"Well, sir," asked Rachel, "what about the Zulus?"
"A regiment of them are coming down here on the warpath. They are hunting fugitives. The fugitives, about fifty of them, passed my camp over an hour ago, and I saw the Impi following them. I rode to warn you all. They told me you were down by the sea. I came to bring you back to your waggon lest you should be cut off."
"Thank you very much," said Rachel. "But I am not afraid of the Zulus. I do not think that they will hurt me."
"Not hurt you! Not hurt you! White and beautiful as you are. Why not?"
"Oh! I don't know," she replied with a laugh, "but you see I am called Inkosazana-y-Zoola. They won't touch one with that name."
"Inkosazana-y-Zoola," he repeated astonished. "Why she is their Spirit, yes, and I remember--white like you, so they say. How did you get that name? But mount, mount! They will kill you first, and ask how you were called afterwards. Your father is much afraid."
"My mother would not be afraid; she knows," muttered Rachel to herself, as she sprang to the saddle of the led-horse.
Then, without more words, they began to gallop back towards the camp. Before they reached the crest of the second rise the sun shone out in earnest, thinning the seaward mist, although between them and the camp it still hung thick. Then suddenly in the fog-edge Rachel saw this sight: Towards them ran a delicately shaped and beautiful native girl, naked except for her moocha, and of a very light, copper-colour, whilst after her, brandishing an assegai, came a Zulu warrior. Evidently the girl was in the last stage of exhaustion; indeed she reeled over the ground, her tongue protruded from her lips and her eyes seemed to be starting from her head.