overhead, and lost itself in endless roars and rumblings 

 in the kloofs and hills around, there came a warmth 

 about his heart and a light into his eye mute thanks- 

 giving that here was something he could battle with 

 and be a man again. 



On the top of the world the storms work all their 

 fury. Only there come mist and wind and rain, 

 thunder and lightning and hail together the pitiless 

 ]. /.terrible hail : there, where the hare hiding in the grass 

 'may know it is the highest thing in all God's world, 

 and nearest to the storm the one clear mark to draw 

 the lightning and, knowing, scurries to the sheltered 

 slopes. 



But the Boy pressed on the little path a racing 

 stream to guide him. Then in the one group of 

 ghostly, mist-blurred rocks he stopped to drink ; and, 

 as he bent for all the blackness of the storm 

 his face leaped out at him, reflected for one instant 

 in the shallow pool ; the blue-white flame of lightning, 

 blinding his aching eyes, hissed down ; the sickening 

 smell of brimstone spread about ; and crash ing thunder 

 close above his head left him dazed and breathless. 



Heedless of the rain, blinking the blackness from 

 his eyes, he sat still for head to clear, and limbs to 

 feel their life again ; and, as he waited, slowly there 

 ^ame upon a colder stiller air that other roar, so far, 

 so dull, so uniform ; so weird and terrifying the 

 voice of the coming hail. 



Huddled beneath the shelving rock he watched the 

 storm sweep by with awful battering din that swamped 



10 



