called
Martial Law is not a power to play with with impunity, and of the man who
wielded it in Gueldersdorp, Bough had conceived a wholesome dread. Best
that he had fled, although his going tagged him with suspicion. That
cursed stupid game of his with the telephone at the Headquarters of the
Baraland Rides might cost him more than the bit of twist with which he had
bribed the orderly, left for a moment in sole charge, and demoralised by
the sight of tobacco.

Opium played you tricks like that, when, for the gratification of a
sinister whim, a grotesque fancy, born and bred of the stuff, you would
risk everything. In excess it played hell with the nerves. That was why
those eyes of hers.... Damn them! Why couldn't a man put them out of mind
and out of sight?

It was not to be done. The obsession held him. A black shadow on the floor
would be the long body, lying face downwards on the altar-steps, with
outspread, crucified arms. He heard her stifled crying upon the Name, and
the gurgling outrush of mingled air and blood that followed each deep sob
for breath....

And then he would be running through the lashing, bucketing wet,
circumventing the sentry-posts, wriggling over the veld on his belly like
a snake. He would be pushing through the dripping covert of the north bank
of the river--for that, he had decided, was the safest way out or
in--leaving fragments of his garments on the thorny cacti that grabbed at
him with their green hands. And then he would find himself lying doggo
between two great stones, waiting for it to be quite dark before he
essayed to pass the rifle-pits that angled across either shore. Two hours
he had lain so, and it had hailed, and sheet lightning had smitten
greenish-blue glares from the hissing, clattering whiteness, and he had
remembered with a shudder those eyes....

Then it had been dark enough to risk passing between the angles of the
rifle-pits, where lay men who kept their eyes skinned and their weapons
handy by day and night. And again Bough had wriggled like a snake, but
through shallow water instead of grass and red mud. He had swam the deep
pools, and once got entangled in barbed-wire, and went under, gurgling and
drowning, three times before he wrenched himself loose. It had seemed as
though a dead woman's hands had seized him, and were dragging him down.
But he tore free and passed safely. There was not a single shot--the Devil
was so obliging! And then, lest Brounckers' picke