Involuntarily he shut his eyes as the thing drew near; but he did not shrink, nor was there terror in his heart.

“Thank God I shall die like a man!” he said through his set teeth.

And then—­while he waited tense and ready for the great revelation, while all that was mortal in him throbbed with anguished expectation—­the monster of destruction swerved as if drawn by a giant hand and passed him by.

He opened his eyes upon a flicker of lightning and saw it whirling onwards, growing ever in volume, towards the kopje which Sylvia had never conquered.  The blackness of the sky above was appalling.  It hung so near, pressing earthwards through that mighty spout.

With bated breath he watched till the kopje was blotted from his sight, and the demons of the storm came shrieking back.  Then suddenly there came a crash that shook the world and made the senses reel.  He heard the rush and swish of water, water torrential that fell in a streaming mass, and as his understanding came staggering back he knew that the first, most menacing danger was past.  The cloud had burst upon the kopje.

The thunder was drowned in the rush of the rain.  It descended in a vast sheet through which the lightning leapt and quivered.  The light of day was wholly gone.

The bungalow rocked on its foundations; the wrath of the tempest beat around it as if it would sweep it away.  The noise of the falling rain was terrific.  He wondered if the place would stand.

Gradually the first wild fury spent itself, and though the storm continued the sky seemed to lift somewhat, to recede as if the swollen clouds were being drawn upwards again.  In the glimmering lightning the veldt shone like a sea.  The water must be deep in the hollows, and he hoped none of the sheep had been caught.  The fact that the farm was on rising ground, though it had been exposed to the full force of the storm, had been its salvation.  He thought of the Kaffir huts, and dismissed the idea of any serious danger there.  The stables, too, were safe for the same reason.  It was only on the lower ground beyond the kopje that the flood could be formidable.  He thought of the watercourse, dry for so many weeks, now without doubt a seething torrent.  He thought with a sudden leap of memory of the hut on the sand above. . . .

“I shall go there to-day.”  How long was it since he had heard those words?  Had they indeed been uttered only that morning?  Or did they belong to an entirely different period of his life?  He felt as if many empty and bitter years had passed over him since they had been spoken.  Was it indeed but that morning that the boy’s eyes with their fierce appeal had looked into his—­and he had given him that stern command to await his coming?

His hand went up to the fastening of the window.  He knew Guy.  There was a strain of honour in his nature which nothing could ever change.  He would keep that sort of appointment or die in the attempt.  If he still lived—­if that frightful cloudburst had not overwhelmed him—­he was there waiting above the raging torrent.