Some turned away with wet eyes and a lump in their
throats. One or two actually blubbered.

"Forgive?" he repeated.

Only the one word--he too seemed choked for utterance. But it conveyed
all--all she would fain have heard. In the face of the whole assembly,
she drew down his head, and pressed her lips to his in one long
despairing kiss. One or two more of the burghers turned away and
blubbered aloud.

"The time has gone," said Schoeman, in his iron voice. But he might as
well not have spoken for all the effect his words seemed to have on the
two prominent figures in this heart-rending drama. They were locked in
each other's embrace, as though alone in the world together.

"Remove her!" repeated the pitiless tones. "It is a scandal for a woman
to make such a scene as this, and at such a time. Why are my orders not
obeyed?"

"She is the daughter of one of our most respected neighbours,
Commandant," growled a burgher from the Sneeuw River. "We cannot lay
hands on her."

"_Ja_, _Ja_. That is true," echoed several voices.

Schoeman was nonplussed. As Aletta had said, the prisoner could only be
shot at the price of her life! Then a bright idea struck him.

"You have shown yourself a brave man hitherto, Kershaw," he called out.
"Will you now show yourself a coward and shield yourself behind a woman?
If not, put her away from you and stand forth."

"You hear what he says, Aletta? One more good-bye kiss, my very own,
and then leave me. Ah God--how are we to part like this?"

"We will not part. If they shoot you they shall shoot me. But--they
dare not, the cowards. They dare not. See!"

Now her tone rang hard and steely. Still clinging to him, so that he
could not move from her side without using force, and yet leaving
herself the freedom of her right hand, she had drawn a revolver--a very
nasty looking and business-like one at that.

"Now come, brave burghers," she cried. "Advance. The first man who
makes a move on us I will shoot--will shoot dead. Then the next, and
the next, and then myself. As God is in Heaven above I will do this."

Not a move was made. They stared at each other stupidly, this crowd of
armed men. She would be every bit as good as her word--the flash of her
eyes told them so much, for it was that of a tigress when her cubs are
threatened. Things were at a deadlock.

"The paper, Commandant! Ask him if he will sign the paper now," was one
of the suggestions thrown