d her, and suddenly
one of the piled-up columns to her left swayed to and fro like a poplar
in a breeze, to fall headlong with a crash which almost mastered the
awful crackling of the thunder overhead and the shrieking of the baboons
scared from their crannies in the cliff. Down it rushed beneath the
stroke of that fiery sword, the brave old pillar that had lasted out so
many centuries, sending clouds of dust and fragments high up into the
blinding rain, and carrying awe and wonder to the heart of the girl who
watched its fall. Away rolled the storm as quickly as it had come, with
a sound like the passing of the artillery of an embattled host; then a
grey rain set in, blotting the outlines of everything, like an endless
absorbing grief, dulling the edge and temper of a life. Through it Jess,
scared and wet to the skin, managed to climb up the natural steps, now
made almost impassable by the prevailing gloom and the rush of water
from the table-top of the mountain, and on across the sodden plain, down
the rocky path on the farther side, past the little walled-in cemetery
with the four red gums planted at its corners, in which a stranger who
had died at Mooifontein lay buried, and so, just as the darkness of the
wet night came down like a cloud, home at last. At the back-door stood
her old uncle with a lantern.

"Is that you, Jess?" he called out in his stentorian tones. "Lord! what
a sight!" as she emerged, her sodden dress clinging to her slight form,
her hands torn with clambering over the rocks, her curling hair which
had broken loose hanging down her back and half covering her face.

"Lord! what a sight!" he ejaculated again. "Why, Jess, where have you
been? Captain Niel has gone out to look for you with the Kafirs."

"I have been sketching in Leeuwen Kloof, and got caught in the storm.
There, uncle, let me pass, I want to take these wet things off. It is
a bitter night," and she ran to her room, leaving a long trail of water
behind her as she passed. The old man entered the house, shut the door,
and blew out the lantern.

"Now, what is it she reminds me of?" he said aloud as he groped his way
down the passage to the sitting-room. "Ah, I know, that night when she
first came here out of the rain leading Bessie by the hand. What can the
girl have been thinking of, not to see the thunder coming up? She ought
to know the signs of the weather here by now. Dreaming, I suppose,
dreaming. She's an odd woman, Jess, very."