While these unholy ceremonies were in progress the climax came, that is so far as the weather was concerned.  Of a sudden a great gale sprang up, a gale of icy wind such as in Southern Africa sometimes precedes a thunderstorm.  It blew for half an hour or more, then lulled.  Now lightning flashed across the heavens, and by the glare of it we perceived that all the population of Simba Town seemed to be gathered in the market-place.  At least there were some thousands of them, talking, gesticulating, pointing at the sky.

A few minutes later there came a great crash of thunder, of which it was impossible to locate the sound, for it rolled from everywhere.  Then suddenly something hard struck the roof by my side and rebounded, to be followed next moment by a blow upon my shoulder which nearly knocked me flat, although I was well protected by the skin rugs.

“Down the stair!” I called.  “They are stoning us,” and suited the action to the word.

Ten seconds later we were both in the room, crouched in its farther corner, for the stones or whatever they were seemed to be following us.  I struck a match, of which fortunately I had some, together with my pipe and a good pocketful of tobacco—­my only solace in those days—­and, as it burned up, saw first that blood was running down Marut’s face, and secondly, that these stones were great lumps of ice, some of them weighing several ounces, which hopped about the floor like live things.

“Hailstorm!” remarked Marut with his accustomed smile.

“Hell storm!” I replied, “for whoever saw hail like that before?”

Then the match burnt out and conversation came to an end for the reason that we could no longer hear each other speak.  The hail came down with a perpetual, rattling roar, that in its sum was one of the most terrible sounds to which I ever listened.  And yet above it I thought that I could catch another, still more terrible, the wail of hundreds of people in agony.  After the first few minutes I began to be afraid that the roof would be battered in, or that the walls would crumble beneath this perpetual fire of the musketry of heaven.  But the cement was good and the place well built.

So it came about that the house stood the tempest, which had it been roofed with tiles or galvanized iron I am sure it would never have done, since the lumps of ice must have shattered one and pierced the other like paper.  Indeed I have seen this happen in a bad hailstorm in Natal which killed my best horse.  But even that hail was as snowflakes compared to this.

I suppose that this natural phenomenon continued for about twenty minutes, not more, during ten of which it was at its worst.  Then by degrees it ceased, the sky cleared and the moon shone out beautifully.  We climbed to the roof again and looked.  It was several inches deep in jagged ice, while the market-place and all the country round appeared in the bright moonlight to be buried beneath a veil of snow.