himself up. Then, with the lightning still flashing athwart
the gloom and the thunder rolling in broken echoes all around them,
they went down the track past the _kopje_ to find the hut on the
sand.

CHAPTER XII

THE SACRIFICE

The sound of water, splashing, welling, overflowing, was
everywhere. It was difficult to keep the track, but Diamond trod
warily. He knew the _veldt_ by heart. Passing the _kopje_, the
rush of the water was like the spouting of a thousand springs. It
gurgled and raced over its scarred sides. The prickly pear bushes
hung flattened over the rocks. By the fitful gleam of the
lightning Burke saw these things. The storm was passing, though
the rain still beat down mercilessly. It would probably rain for
many hours; but a faint vague light far down on the unseen horizon
told of a rising moon. It would not be completely dark again.

They splashed their way past the _kopje_, and immediately a loud
roaring filled his ears. As he had guessed the dry watercourse had
become a foaming torrent. Again a sharp anxiety assailed him. He
spoke to Diamond, and they turned off the track.

The animal was nervous. He started and quivered at the
unaccustomed sound. But in a moment or two he responded to Burke's
insistence, and went down the sloping ground that led to the
seething water.

Burke guided him with an unerring hand, holding him up firmly, for
the way was difficult and uneven. A vivid flash of lightning gave
him his direction, and by it he saw a marvellous picture. The
spruit had become a wide, dashing river. The swirl and rush of the
current sounded like a sea at high tide. The flood spread like an
estuary over the _veldt_ on the farther side, and he saw that the
bank nearest to him was brimming.

The picture was gone in a moment, but it was registered indelibly
upon his brain. And the hut--Guy's hut--was scarcely more than
twenty yards from that swirling river which was rising with every
second.

"He can't be there," he said aloud. But yet he knew that he could
not turn back till he had satisfied himself on this point. So,
with a word of encouragement to Diamond, he splashed onwards.

Again the lightning flared torchlike through the gloom, but the
thunder of the torrent drowned the thunder overhead. He was
nearing the hut now, and found that in places the rain had so
beaten down the sandy surface of the ground that it sank and
yielded like a quagmire. He knew that