We got one waggon through, with some difficulty, 

 but at nightfall the second was still in the river ; we 

 had carried out everything removable, even to the 

 bucksails, but the weakened bullocks could not move 

 the empty waggon. 



The thunder-clouds were piling up ahead, and 

 distant lightning gave warning of a storm away up 

 river ; so we wound the trek-chain round a big tree 

 on the bank, to anchor the waggon in case of flood, 

 and reeling from work and weariness, too tired to 

 think of food, I flung myself down in my blankets 

 under the other waggon which was outspanned where 

 we had stopped it in the double-rutted veld road, 

 and settling comfortably into the sandy furrow cut 

 by many wheels, was ' dead to the world ' in a few 

 minutes. Near midnight the storm awoke me and 

 a curious coldness about the neck and shoulders made 

 me turn over to pull the blankets up. The road had 

 served as a storm-water drain, converting the two 

 wheel furrows into running streams, and I, rolled in 

 my blankets, had dammed up one of them. The 

 prompt flow of the released water as soon as I turned 

 over, told plainly what had happened. I looked out 

 at the driving rain and the glistening earth, as shown 

 up by constant flashes of lightning : it was a world 

 of rain and spray and running water. It seemed that 

 there was neither hope nor mercy anywhere ; I was 

 too tired to care, and dropping back into the trough, 



slept the night out in water. 

 In the morning we found the 



waggon still in the drift, although 



446 



