led together close to the trembling horses,
with the thunder clattering overhead, and the lightning spurting like
water from a sluice, all ways at once. There was no danger, of course,
unless the horses broke loose. I was standing with my head downward and
my hands over my mouth, hearing the trees thrashing each other. I could
not see who was next me till the flashes came. Then I found that I was
packed near Saumarez and the eldest Miss Copleigh, with my own horse
just in front of me. I recognized the eldest Miss Copleigh, because
she had a pagri round her helmet, and the younger had not. All the
electricity in the air had gone into my body and I was quivering and
tingling from head to foot--exactly as a corn shoots and tingles before
rain. It was a grand storm. The wind seemed to be picking up the earth
and pitching it to leeward in great heaps; and the heat beat up from the
ground like the heat of the Day of Judgment.

The storm lulled slightly after the first half-hour, and I heard a
despairing little voice close to my ear, saying to itself, quietly and
softly, as if some lost soul were flying about with the wind: "O my
God!" Then the younger Miss Copleigh stumbled into my arms, saying:
"Where is my horse? Get my horse. I want to go home. I WANT to go home.
Take me home."

I thought that the lightning and the black darkness had frightened her;
so I said there was no danger, but she must wait till the storm blew
over. She answered: "It is not THAT! It is not THAT! I want to go home!
O take me away from here!"

I said that she could not go till the light came; but I felt her brush
past me and go away. It was too dark to see where. Then the whole sky
was split open with one tremendous flash, as if the end of the world
were coming, and all the women shrieked.

Almost directly after this, I felt a man's hand on my shoulder and heard
Saumarez bellowing in my ear. Through the rattling of the trees and
howling of the wind, I did not catch his words at once, but at last
I heard him say: "I've proposed to the wrong one! What shall I do?"
Saumarez had no occasion to make this confidence to me. I was never a
friend of his, nor am I now; but I fancy neither of us were ourselves
just then. He was shaking as he stood with excitement, and I was feeling
queer all over with the electricity. I could not think of anything to
say except:--"More fool you for proposing in a dust-storm." But I did
not see how that would improve the mist