The Grass is Singing

Chapter Eleven

Mary awoke suddenly, as if some big elbow had nudged her. It was still night. Dick lay asleep beside her. The window was creaking on its hinges, and when she looked into the square of darkness, she could see stars moving and flashing among the tree boughs. The sky was luminous; but there was an undertone of cold grey; the stars were bright; but with a weak gleam. Inside the room the furniture was growing into light. She could see a glimmer that was the surface of the mirror. Then a cock crowed in the compound, and a dozen shrill voices answered for the dawn. Daylight? Moonlight? Both. Both mingled together, and it would be sunrise in half an hour. She yawned, settled back on her lumpy pillows, and stretched out her limbs. She thought, that usually her wakings were grey and struggling, a reluctant upheaval of her body from the bed's refuge. Today she was vastly peaceful and rested. Her mind was clear, and her body comfortable. Cradled in ease she locked her hands behind her head and stared at the darkness that held the familiar walls and furniture. Lazily she created the room in imagination, placing each cupboard and chair; then moved beyond the house, hollowing it out of the night in her mind as if her hand cupped it. At last, from a height, she looked down on the building set among the bush – and was filled with a regretful, peaceable tenderness. It seemed as if she were holding that immensely pitiful thing, the farm with its inhabitants, in the hollow of her hand, which curved round it to shut out the gaze of the cruelly critical world. And she felt as if she must weep. She could feel the tears running down her cheeks, which stung rawly, and she put up her fingers to touch the skin. The contact of rough finger with roughened flesh restored her to herself. She continued to cry, but hopelessly for herself, though still from a forgiving distance. Then Dick stirred and woke, sitting up with a jerk. She knew he was turning his head this way and that, in the dark, listening; and she lay quite still. She felt his hand touch her cheek diffidently. But that diffident, apologetic touch annoyed her, and she jerked her head back. `What is the matter, Mary?'

`Nothing,' she replied.

`Are you sorry you are leaving?'

The question seemed to her ridiculous; nothing to do with her at all. And she did not want to think of Dick, except with that distant and impersonal pity. Could he not let her live in this last short moment of peace? `Go to sleep,' she said. `It's not morning yet.'

Her voice seemed to him normal; even her rejection of him was too familiar a thing to waken him thoroughly. In a minute he was asleep again, stretched out as if he had never stirred. But now she could not forget him: she knew he was lying there beside her, could feel his limbs sprawled against hers. She raised herself up, feeling bitter against him, who never left her in peace. Always he was there, a torturing reminder of what she had to forget in order to remain herself. She sat up straight, resting her head on locked hands, conscious again, as she had not been for a very long time, of that feeling of strain, as if she were stretched taut between two immovable poles. She rocked herself slowly back and forth, with a dim, mindless movement, trying to sink back into that region of her mind where Dick did not exist. For it had been a choice, if one could call such an inevitable thing a choice, between Dick and the other, and Dick was destroyed long ago. 'Poor Dick,' she said tranquilly, at last, from her recovered distance from him; and a flicker of terror touched her, an intimation of that terror which would later engulf her. She knew it: she felt transparent, clairvoyant, containing all things. But not Dick. No; she looked at him, a huddle under blankets, his face a pallid glimmer in the growing dawn. It crept in from the low square of window, and with it came a warm, airless breeze. `Poor Dick,' she said, for the last time, and did not think of him again.

She got out of bed and stood by the window. The low sill cut across her thighs. If she bent forward and down, she could touch the ground, which seemed to rise up outside, stretching to the trees. The stars were gone. The sky was colourless and immense. The veld was dim. Everything was on the verge of colour. There was a hint of green in the curve of a leaf, a shine in the sky that was almost blue, and the clear starred outline of the poinsettia flowers suggested the hardness of scarlet.

Slowly, across the sky, spread a marvellous pink flush, and the trees lifted to meet it, becoming tinged with pink and bending out into the dawn she saw the world had put on the colour and shape. The night was over. When the sun rose, she thought, her moment would be over, this marvellous moment of peace and forgiveness granted her by a forgiving God. She crouched against the sill, cramped and motionless, clutching on to her last remnants of happiness, her mind as clear as the sky itself. But why, this last morning, had she woken peacefully from a good sleep, and not, as usually, from one of those ugly dreams that seemed to carry over into the day, so that there sometimes seemed no division between the horrors of the night and of the day? Why should she be standing there, watching the sunrise, as if the world were being created afresh for her, feeling this wonderful rooted joy? She was inside a bubble of fresh light and colour, of brilliant sound and birdsong. All around the trees were filled with shrilling birds, that sounded her own happiness and chorused it to the sky. As light as a blown feather she left the room and went outside to the verandah. It was so beautiful: so beautiful she could hardly bear the wonderful flushed sky, streaked with red and hazed against the intense blue; the beautiful still trees, with their load of singing birds; the vivid starry poinsettias cutting into the air with jagged scarlet.

The red spread out from the centre of the sky, seemed to tinge the smoke haze over the kopjes, and to light the trees with a hot sulphurous yellow.

The world was a miracle of colour, and all for her, all for her! She could have wept with release and lighthearted joy. And then she heard it, that sound she could never bear, the first cicada beginning to shrill somewhere in the trees: It was the sound of the sun itself, and how she hated the sun! It was rising now; there was sullen red curve behind a black rock, and a beam of hot yellow light shot up into the blue. One after another the cicadas joined the steady shrilling noise, so that now there were no birds to be heard, and that insistent low screaming seemed to her to be the noise of the sun, whirling on its hot core, the sound of the harsh brazen light, the sound of the gathering heat. Her head was beginning to throb, her shoulders to ache. The dull red disc jerked suddenly up over the kopjes, and the colour ebbed from the sky; a lean, sun flattened landscape stretched before her, dun-coloured, brown and olive-green, and the smoke-haze was everywhere, lingering in the trees and obscuring the hills. The sky shut down over her, with thick yellowish walls of smoke growing up to meet it. The world was small, shut in a room of heat and haze and light.

Shuddering, she seemed to wake, looking about her, touching dry lips with her tongue. She was leaning pressed back against the thin brick wall, her hands extended, palms upwards, warding off the day's coming. She let them fall, moved away from the wall, and looked over her shoulder at where she had been crouching. `There,' she said aloud, `it will be there.' And the sound of her own voice, calm, prophetic, fatal, fell on her ears like a warning. She went indoors, pressing her hands to her head, to evade that evil verandah.

Dick was awake, just pulling on his trousers to go and beat the gong. She stood, waiting for the clanging noise. It came, and with it the terror. Somewhere he stood, listening for the gong that announced the last day. She could see him clearly. He was standing under a tree somewhere, leaning back against it, his eyes fixed on the house, waiting. She knew it. But not yet, she said to herself, it would not be quite yet; she had the day in front of her.

`Get dressed, Mary;' said Dick, in a quiet urgent voice. Repeated, it penetrated her brain, and she obediently went into the bedroom and began to put on her clothes. Fumbling for buttons she paused, went to the door, about to call for Moses, who would do up her clothes, hand her the brush, tie up her hair, and take the responsibility for her so that she need not think for herself. Through the curtain she saw Dick and that young man sitting at the table, eating a meal she had not prepared. She remembered that Moses had gone: relief flooded her. She would be alone, alone all day. She could concentrate on the one thing left that mattered to her now. She saw Dick rise, with a grieved face, pull across the curtain; she understood that she had been standing in the doorway in her underclothes, in the full sight of that young man. Shame flushed her; but before the saving resentment could countermand the shame, she forgot Dick and the young 'man. She finished dressing, slowly, slowly, with long pauses between each movement – for had she not all day? – and at last went outside. The table was littered with dishes; the men had gone off to work. A big dish was caked with thick white grease; she thought that they must have been gone some time.

Listlessly she stacked the plates, carried them into the kitchen, filled the sink with water, and then forgot what she was doing. Standing still, her hands hanging idly, she thought, `Somewhere outside, among the trees, he is waiting.' She rushed about the house in a panic, shutting the doors, and all the windows, and collapsed at last on the sofa, like a hare crouching in a tuft of grass, watching the dogs come nearer. But it was no use waiting now: her mind told her she had all day, until the night came. Again, for a brief space, her brain cleared.

What was it all about? she wondered dully, pressing her fingers against her eyes so that they gushed jets of yellow light. f don't understand, she said, I don't understand…, The idea of herself, standing above the house, somewhere on an invisible mountain peak, looking down like a judge on his court, returned; but this time without a sense of release. It was a torment to her, in that momentarily pitiless clarity, to see herself. That was how they would see her, when it was all over, as she saw herself now: an angular, ugly, pitiful woman, with nothing left of the life she had been given to use but one thought: that between her and the angry sun was a thin strip of blistering iron; that between her and the fatal darkness was a short strip of daylight. And time taking on the attributes of space, she stood balanced in mid-air, and while she saw Mary Turner rocking in the corner of the sofa, moaning, her fists in her eyes, she saw, too, Mary Turner as she had been, that foolish girl travelling unknowingly to this end.

I don't understand, she said again. I understand nothing. The evil is there, but of what it consists, I do not know. Even the words were not her own. She groaned because of the strain, lifted in puzzled, judgment on herself, who was at the same time the judged, knowing only that she was suffering torment beyond description. For the evil was a thing she could feel: had she not lived with it for many years? How many? Long before she had ever come to the farm! Even that girl had known it. But what had she done? And what was it? What had she done? Nothing, of her own volition. Step by step, she had come to this, a woman without will, sitting on an old ruined sofa that smelled of dirt, waiting for the night to come that would finish her. And justly – she knew that. But why? Against what had she sinned? The conflict between her judgment on herself, and her feeling of innocence, of having been propelled by something she did not understand, cracked the wholeness of her vision. She lifted her head, with a startled jerk, thinking only that the trees were pressing in round the house, watching, waiting for the night. When she was gone, she thought, this house would be destroyed. It would be killed by the bush, which had always hated it, had always stood around it silently, waiting for the moment when it could advance and cover it, for ever, so that nothing remained. She could see the house, empty, its furnishings rotting. First would come the rats. Already they ran over the rafters at night, their long wiry tails trailing. They would swarm up over the furniture and the walls, gnawing and gutting till nothing was left but brick and iron, and the floors were thick with droppings. And then the beetles: great, black, armoured beetles would crawl in from the veld and lodge in the crevices of the brick. Some were there now, twiddling with their feelers, watching with small painted eyes. And then the rains would break. The sky would lift and clear, and the trees grow lush and distinct, and the air would be shining like water. But at night the rain would drum down on the roof, on and on, endlessly, and the grass would spring up in the space of empty ground about the house, and the bushes would follow, and by the next season creepers would trail over the verandah and pull down the tins of plants, so that they crashed into pullulating masses of wet growth, and geraniums grew side by side with the blackjacks. A branch would nudge through the broken windowpanes, and, slowly, slowly, the shoulders of trees would press against the brick, until at last it leaned and crumbled and fell, a hopeless ruin, with sheets of rusting iron resting on the bushes, and under the tin, toads and long wiry worms like rats' tails, and fat white worms, like slugs. At last the bush would cover the subsiding mass, and there would be nothing left. People would search for the house. They would come across a stone step propped against the trunk of a tree, and say, `This must be the Turners' old house. Funny how quick the bush covers things over once they are left!' And, scratching round, pushing aside a plant with the point of a shoe, they would come upon a door handle wedged into the crotch of a stem, or a fragment of china in a silt of pebbles. And, a little further on, there would be a mound of reddish mud, swathed with rotting thatch like the hair of a dead person, which was all that remained of the Englishman's hut; and beyond that, the heap of rubble that marked the end of the store. The house, the store, the chicken runs, the hut – all gone, nothing left, the bush grown over all! Her mind was filled with green, wet branches, thick wet grass, and thrusting bushes. It snapped shut: the vision was gone.

She raised her head and looked about her. She was sitting in that little room with the tin roof overhead, and the sweat was pouring down her body. With all the windows shut it was unbearable. She ran outside: what was the use of sitting there, just waiting, waiting for the door to open and death to enter? She ran away from the house, across the hard, baked earth where the grains of sand glittered, towards the trees. The trees hated her, but she could not stay in the house. She entered them, feeling the shade fall on her flesh, hearing the cicadas all about, shrilling endlessly, insistently. She walked straight into the bush, thinking: `I will come across him, and it will all be over.' She stumbled through swathes of pale grass, and the bushes dragged at her dress. She leaned at last against a tree, her eyes shut, her ears tilled with noise, her skin aching. There she remained, waiting, waiting. But the noise was unbearable! She was caught up in a shriek of sound. She opened her eyes again. Straight in front of her was a sapling, its greyish trunk knotted as if it were an old gnarled tree. But they were not knots. Three of those ugly little beetles squatted there, singing away, oblivious of her, of everything, blind to everything but the life-giving sun. She came close to them, staring. Such little beetles to make such an intolerable noise! And she had never seen one before. She realized, suddenly, standing there, that all those years she had lived in that house, with the acres of bush all around her, and she had never penetrated into the trees, had never gone off the paths. And for all those years she had listened wearily, through the hot dry months, with her nerves prickling, to that terrible shrilling, and had never seen the beetles who made it. Lifting her eyes she saw she was standing in the full sun, that seemed so low she could reach up a hand and pluck it out of the sky: a big red sun, sullen with smoke. She reached up her hand; it brushed against a cluster of leaves, and something whirred away. With a little moan of horror she ran through the bushes and the grass, away back to the clearing. There she stood still, clutching at her throat.

A native stood there, outside the house. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream. Then she saw it was another native, who held in his hand a piece of paper. He held it as illiterate natives always handle printed paper: as if it is something that might explode in their faces. She went towards him and took it. It said: `Shall not be back for lunch. Too busy clearing things up. Send down tea and sandwiches,' This small reminder from the outer world hardly had the power to rouse her. She thought irritably that here was Dick again; and holding the paper in her hand she went back into the house, opening the windows with an angry jerk. What did the boy mean by not keeping the windows open when she had told him so many times… She looked at the paper; where had it come from? She sat on the sofa, her eyes shut. Through a grey coil of sleep she heard a knocking on the door and started up; then she sat down again, trembling, waiting for him to come. The knock sounded again. Wearily she dragged herself up and went to the door. Outside stood the native. `What do you want?' she asked. He indicated, through the door, the paper lying on the table. She remembered that Dick had asked for tea. She made it, filled a whisky bottle with it, and sent the boy away, forgetting all about the sandwiches. The thought was in her mind that the young man would be thirsty; he was not used to the country. The phrase, `the country', which was more of a summons to consciousness than even Dick was, disturbed her, like a memory she did not want to revive. But she continued to think about the youth. She saw him, behind shut lids, with his very young, unmarked, friendly face. He had been kind to her; he had not condemned her. Suddenly she found herself clinging to the thought of him.

He would save her! She would wait for him to return. She stood in the doorway looking down over the sweep of sere, dry vlei. Somewhere in the trees he

was waiting; somewhere in the vlei was the young man, who would come before the night to rescue her. She stared, hardly blinking, into the aching sunlight. But what was the matter with the big land down there, which was always an expanse of dull red at this time of the year? It was covered over with bushes and grass. Panic plucked at her; already, before she was even dead, the bush was conquering the farm, sending its outriders to cover the good red soil with plants and grass; the bush knew she was going to die!

But the young man… shutting out everything else she thought of him, with his warm comfort, his protecting arm. She leaned over the verandah wall, breaking off the geraniums, staring at the slopes of bush and vlei for a plume of reddish dust that would show the car was coming. But they no longer had a car; the car had been sold… The strength went out of her, and she sat down, breathless, closing her eyes. When she opened them the light had changed, and the shadows were stretching out in front of the house. The feeling of late afternoon was in the air, and there was a sultry, dusty evening glow, a clanging bell of yellow light that washed in her head like pain. She had been asleep. She had slept through this last day. And perhaps while she slept he had come into the house looking for her?

She got to her feet in a rush of defiant courage and marched into the front room. It was empty. But she knew, without any doubt at all, that he had been there while she slept, had peered through the window to see her. The kitchen door was open: that proved it. Perhaps that was what had awakened her, his being there, peering at her, perhaps even reaching out to touch her? She shrank and shivered.

ut the young man would save her. Sustained by the thought of his coming, which could not be far off now, she left the house by the back door, and walked towards his hut. Stepping over the low brick step, she bent herself into the cool interior. Oh, the coolness was so lovely, lovely on her skin! She sat on his bed, leaning her head on her hands, feeling the small chill from the cement floor strike up

against her feet. At last she jerked herself up: she must not sleep again. Along the curving wall of the hut was a row of shoes. She looked at them with wonder. Such good, smart shoes – she hadn't seen anything like them for years. She picked one up, feeling the shiny leather admiringly, peering for the label: 'John Craftsman, Edinburgh,' it said. She laughed, without knowing why. She put it down. On the floor was a big suitcase, which she could hardly lift. She tumbled it open on the floor. Books! Her wonder deepened. She had not seen books for so long she would find it difficult to read. She looked at the titles: Rhodes and His Influence: Rhodes and the Spirit of Africa: Rhodes and His Mission. ' Rhodes,' she said vaguely, aloud. She knew nothing about him, except what she had been taught at school, which wasn't much. She knew he had conquered a continent. 'Conquered a continent,' she said aloud, proud that she had remembered the phrase after so long. 'Rhodes sat on an inverted bucket by a hole in the ground, dreaming of his home in England, and of the unconquered hinterland.' She began to laugh; it seemed to her extraordinarily funny. Then she thought, forgetting about the Englishman, and Rhodes, and the books: 'But I haven't been to the store.' And she knew she must go.

She walked along the narrow path towards it. The path now hardly existed. It was a furrow through the bush, and the grass was under her feet. A few paces from the low brick building, she stopped. There it was, the ugly store. There it was, at her death, even as it had been all her life. But it was empty; if she went in there would be nothing on the shelves, the ants were making red granulated tunnels over the counter, the walls were sheeted with spider-web. But it was still there. In a sudden violent hate she banged on the door. It swung open. The store smell still clung there: A enveloped her, musty and thick and sweet. She stared. There he was, there in front of her, standing behind the counter as if he were serving goods, Moses the black man, standing there, looking out at her with a lazy, but threatening disdain. She gave a little cry and stumbled out, running back down the path, looking over her shoulder. The door was swinging loosely, and he did not come out. So, that was where he was waiting! She knew now that she had expected it all the time. Of course: where else could he wait, but in the hated store? She went back into the thatched hut. There was the young man, looking at her, his face puzzled, stooping over the books she had scattered over the floor, putting them back into the suitcase. No, he could not save hen She sank down on the bed, feeling sick and hopeless. There was no salvation: she would have to go through with it.

And it seemed to her, as she looked at his puzzled, unhappy face, that she had lived through all this before. She wondered, searching through her past. Yes: long, long ago, she had turned towards another young man, a young man from a farm, when she was in trouble and had not known what to do. It had seemed to her that she would be saved from herself by marrying him. And then, she had felt this emptiness when, at last, she had known there was to be no release and that she would live on the farm till she died. There was nothing new even in her death; all this was familiar, even her feeling of helplessness.

She rose to her feet with a queerly appropriate dignity, a dignity that left Tony speechless, for the protective pity with which he had been going to address her, now seemed useless.

She would walk out her road alone, she thought. That was the lesson she had to learn. If she had learned it, long ago, she would not be standing here now, having been betrayed for the second time by her weak reliance on a human being who should not be expected to take the responsibility for her.

'Mrs Turner,' asked the young man awkwardly, 'did you want to see me about something?'

'I was,' she said. 'But it's no good: it's not you…' But she could not discuss it with him. She glanced over her shoulder at the evening sky; long trails of pinkish cloud hung there, across the fading blue. `Such a lovely evening,' she said conventionally.

`Yes… Mrs Turner, I have been talking to your husband.'

`Have you?' she asked, politely.

`We thought… I suggested that tomorrow, when you get into town, you might go and see a doctor. You are ill, Mrs Turner.'

`I have been ill for years,' she said tartly. `Inside, somewhere. Inside. Not ill, you understand. Everything wrong, somewhere.' She nodded to him, and stepped over the threshold. Then she turned back. `He is there,' she whispered secretively. `In there.' She nodded in the direction of the store.

`Is he?' asked the young man dutifully, humouring her. She went back to the house, looking round vaguely at the little brick buildings that would soon have vanished. Where she walked, with the warm sand of the path under her feet, small animals would walk proudly through trees and grass.

She entered the house, and faced the long vigil of her death. With deliberation and a stoical pride she sat down on the old sofa that had worn into the shape of her body, and folded her hands and waited, looking at the windows for the light to fade. But after a while she realized that Dick was seated at the table under a lighted lamp, gazing at her.

`Have you finished packing your things?' he asked. `You know we must be gone by tomorrow morning.'

She began to laugh. `Tomorrow!' she said. She cackled with laughter; until she saw him get up, abruptly, and go out, his hand over his face. Good, now she was alone.

But later she watched the two men carry in plates and food, and begin to eat, sitting down opposite her. They offered her a cup of liquid which she refused impatiently, waiting for them to go. It would be over soon; soon, in a few hours it would be over. But they would not go. They seemed to be sitting there because of her. She went outside, blindly, feeling with her hands at the edge of the door. There was no lessening of the heat; the invisible dark sky bent over the house, weighing down upon it. Behind her she heard Dick say something about rain. `It will rain,' she said to herself, `after I am dead.'

`Bed?' said Dick from the doorway, at last.

The question seemed to have nothing to do with her; she was standing on the verandah, where she knew she would have to wait, watching the darkness for movement.

`Come to bed, Mary!' She saw that she would first of all have to go to bed, because they would not leave her alone until she did. Automatically, she turned the lamp down in the front room, and went to lock the back door. It seemed essential that the back door should be locked; she felt she must be protected from the back; the blow would come from the front. Outside the back door stood Moses, facing her. He seemed outlined in stars. She stepped back, her knees gone to water, and locked the door.

`He's outside,' she remarked breathlessly to Dick, as if this was only to be expected.

`Who is?'

She did not reply. Dick went outside. She could hear him moving, and saw the swinging beams of light from the hurricane lamp he carried. `There is nothing there, Mary,' he said, when he returned. She nodded, in affirmation, and went again to lock the back door. Now the oblong of night was blank; Moses was not there. He would have gone into the bush, at the front of the house, she thought, in order to wait until she appeared: Back in the bedroom she stood in the middle of the floor. She might have forgotten how to move.

`Aren't you getting undressed?' asked Dick at last, in that hopeless, patient voice.

Obediently she pulled off her clothes and got into bed, lying alertly awake, listening. She felt him put out a hand to touch her, and at once became inert. But he was a long way off, he did not matter to her: he was like a person on the other side of a thick glass wall.

`Mary?' he said. She remained silent.

'Mary, listen to me. You are ill. You must let me take you to the doctor.'

It seemed to her the young Englishman was speaking; from him had originated this concern for her, this belief in her essential innocence, this absolution from guilt.

`Of course, I am ill,' she said confidingly, addressing the Englishman. `I've always been ill, ever since I can remember. I am ill here.' She pointed to her chest, sitting bolt upright in bed. But her hand dropped, she forgot the Englishman, Dick's voice sounded in her ears like the echo of a voice across a valley. She was listening to the night outside. And, slowly, the terror engulfed her which she had known must come. Once she lay down, and turned her face into the darkness of the pillows; but her eyes were alive with light, and against the light she saw a dark, waiting shape. She sat up again, shuddering. He was in the room, just beside her! But the room was empty. There was nothing. She heard a boom of thunder, and saw, as she had done so many times, the lightning flicker on a shadowed wall. Now it seemed as if the night were closing in on her, and the little house was bending over like a candle, melting in the heat. She heard the crack, crack; the restless moving of the iron above, and it seemed to her that a vast black body, like a human spider, was crawling over the roof, trying to get inside. She was alone. She was defenceless. She was shut in a small black box, the walls closing in on her, the roof pressing down. She was in a trap, cornered and helpless. But she would have to go out and meet him. Propelled by fear, but also by knowledge, she rose out of bed, not making a sound. Gradually, hardly moving, she let her legs down over the dark edge of the bed; and then, suddenly afraid of the dark gulfs of the floor, she ran to the centre of the room. There she paused. A movement of lightning on the walls drove her forward again. She stood in the curtain-folds, feeling the hairy stuff on her skin, like a hide. She shook them off, and stood poised for flight across the darkness of the front room, which was full of menacing shapes. Again the fur of animals; but this time on her feet. The long loose paw of a wildcat caught in her foot as she darted over it, so that she gave a sharp little moan of fear, and glanced over her shoulder at the kitchen door. It was locked and dark. She was on the verandah. She moved backwards till she was pressed against the wall. That was protected; she was standing as she should be, as she knew she had to wait. It steadied her.

The fog of terror cleared from her eyes, and she could see, as the lightning flickered, that the two farm dogs were lying with lifted heads, looking at her, on the verandah. Beyond the three slim pillars, and the stiff outlines of the geranium plants, nothing could be seen until the lightning plunged again, when the crowding shoulders of the trees showed against a cloud-packed sky. She thought that as she watched they moved nearer; and she pressed back against the wall with all her strength, so that she could feel the rough brick pricking through her nightgown into her flesh. She shook her head to clear it, and the trees stood still and waited. It seemed to her that as long as she could fix her attention on them they could not creep up to her.

She knew she must keep her mind on three things: the trees, so that they should not rush on her unawares; the door to one side of her where Dick might come; and the lightning that ran and danced, illuminating stormy ranges of cloud. Her feet firmly planted on the tepid rough brick of the floor, her back held against the wall, she crouched and stared, all her senses stretched, rigidly breathing in little gasps.

Then; as she heard the thunder growl and shake in the trees, the sky lit up, and she saw a man's shape move out from the dark and come towards her, gliding silently up the steps, while the dogs stood alertly watching, their tails swinging in welcome. Two yards away Moses stopped. She could see his great shoulders, the shape of his head, the glistening of his eyes. And, at the sight of him, her emotions unexpectedly shifted, to create in her an extraordinary feeling of guilt; but towards him, to whom she had been disloyal, and at the bidding of the Englishman.

She felt she had only to move forward, to explain, to appeal, and the terror would be dissolved. She opened her mouth to speak; and, as she did so, saw his hand, which held a long curving shape, lifted above his head; and she knew it would be too late. All her past slid away, and her mouth, opened in appeal, let out the beginning of a scream, which was stopped by a black wedge of hand inserted between her jaws. But the scream continued, in her stomach, choking her; and she lifted her hands, claw-like, to ward him off. And then the bush avenged itself: that was her last thought. The trees advanced in a rush, like beasts, and the thunder was the noise of their coming. As the brain at last gave way, collapsing in a ruin of horror, she saw, over the big arm that forced her head back against the wall, the other arm descending. Her limbs sagged under her, the lightning leapt out from the dark, and darted down the plunging steel.

Moses, letting her go, saw her roll to the floor. A steady drumming sound on the iron overhead brought him to knowledge of his surroundings, and he started up, turning his head this way and that, straightening his body. The dogs were growling at his feet, but their tails still swung; this man had fed them and looked after them; Mary had disliked them. Moses clouted them back softly, his open palm to their faces; and they stood watching him, puzzled, and whining softly.

It was beginning to rain; big drops blew in across Moses' back, chilling him. And another dripping sound made him look down at the piece of metal he held, which he had picked up in the bush, and had spent the day polishing and sharpening. The blood trickled off it on to the brick floor. And a curious division of purpose showed itself in his next movements.

First he dropped the weapon sharply on the floor, as if in fear; then he checked himself and picked it up. He held it over the verandah wall under the now drenching downpour, and in a few moments withdrew it. Now he hesitated, looking about him. He thrust the metal in his belt, held his hands under the rain, and, cleansed, prepared to walk off through the rain to his hut in the compound, ready to protest his innocence. This purpose, too, passed. He pulled out the weapon, looked at it, and simply tossed it down beside Mary, suddenly indifferent, for a new need possessed him.

Ignoring Dick, who was asleep- through one thickness of wall, but who was unimportant, since he had been defeated long ago, Moses vaulted over the verandah wall, alighting squarely on his feet in the squelch of rain which sluiced off his shoulders, soaking him in an instant. He moved off towards the Englishman's hut through the drenching blackness, water to his calves. At the door he peered in. It was impossible to see, but he could hear; holding his own breath, he listened intently, through the sound of the rain, for the Englishman's breathing. But he could hear nothing. He stooped through the doorway, and walked quietly to the bedside. His enemy, whom he had outwitted, was asleep. Contemptuously, the native turned away, and walked back to the house. It seemed he intended to pass it, but as he came level with the verandah he paused, resting his hand on the wall, looking over. It was black, too dark to see. He waited, for the watery glimmer of lightning to illuminate, for the last time, the small house, the verandah, the huddled shape of Mary on the brick, and the dogs who were moving restlessly about her, still whining gently, but uncertainly. It came: a prolonged drench of light, like a wet dawn. And this was his final moment of triumph, a moment so perfect and complete that it took the urgency from thoughts of escape, leaving him indifferent. When the dark returned he took his hand from the wall, and walked slowly off through the rain towards the bush. Though what thoughts of regret, or pity, or perhaps even wounded human affection were compounded with the satisfaction of his completed revenge, it is impossible to say. For, when he had gone perhaps a couple of hundred yards through the soaking bush he stopped, turned aside, and leaned against a tree on an ant-heap. And there he would remain, until his pursuers, in their turn; came to find him.