as so placed that the lamp cast a
magnified reflection of his every feature and even of his expression
upon the screen before them. The attitude in which he sat was his
favourite one when he was plunged in thought, his hands resting on his
knees and his gaze fixed on vacancy. He was thinking of his triumph,
and of all that he had gone through to win it, and of all that it would
bring him. He held the trump cards now, and the game lay in his own
hand. He had triumphed, and yet over him hung the shadow of that curse
which dogs the presence of our accomplished desires. Too often, even
with the innocent, does the seed of our destruction lurk in the rich
blossom of our hopes, and much more is this so with the guilty. Somehow
this thought was present with him to-night, and in a rough half-educated
way he grasped its truth. Once more the saying of the old Boer general
rose in his mind: "I believe that there is a God--I believe that God
sets a limit to a man's doings. If he is going too far, God _kills
him_."

What a dreadful thing it would be if the old fool were right after all!
Supposing that there were a God, and God were to kill him to-night, and
hurry off his soul, if he had one, to some dim place of unending fear!
All his superstitions awoke at the thought, and he shivered so violently
that the shadow of the shiver caused the outlines of the gigantic form
upon the canvas to tremble visibly.

Then rising with an angry curse, Muller hastily threw off his outer
clothing, and having turned down but not extinguished the rough
parrafine lamp, he flung himself down upon the little camp bedstead,
which creaked and groaned beneath his weight like a thing in pain.

Now came silence, only broken by the drip, drip of the rain from the gum
leaves overhead, and the rattling of the boughs whenever a breath of air
stirred them. It was an eerie and depressing night, a night that might
well have tried the nerves of any strong man who, wet through and worn
out, was obliged to crouch upon the open veldt and endure it. How
much more awful was it then to the unfortunate woman who, half
broken-hearted, fever-stricken, and well-nigh crazed with the suffering
of mind and body, waited in it to see murder done! Slowly the minutes
passed, and at every raindrop or rustle of a bough her guilty conscience
summoned up a host of fears. But by the mere power of her will she kept
them down. She would go through with it. Yes, she would go through with
i