as a wolf's mouth till the next flash. The lightning, coming from
all quarters, appeared to meet above me, and now was red, now
golden, now silver again, while the great cat-like beasts, as they
leaped or lay, looked like gold, red, and silver lions, reminding
me of the signs of public-houses in old England, far away.
Meantime the donga beneath roared with the flooded torrent that the
rain was bringing down from the heights of Umbopobekatanktshiu.

I stood watching the grand spectacle for some time, rather pitying
the Stranger who was out in it, by no fault of mine. Then I
knocked the ashes out of my pipe, ate a mealy or two, and crept
into my kartel, {22} and slept the sleep of the just.

About dawn I woke. The thunder had rolled away like a bad dream.
The long level silver shafts of the dawn were flooding the heights,
raindrops glittered like diamonds on every kopje and karroo bush,
leaving the deep donga bathed in the solemn pall of mysterious
night.

My thoughts went rapidly over the millions of leagues of land and
sea, where life, that perpetual problem, was now awaking to another
day of struggle and temptation. Then the golden arrows of the day
followed fast. The silver and blue sky grew roseate with that wide
wild blush which testifies to the modest delight of nature,
satisfied and grateful for her silent existence and her amorous
repose. I breakfasted, went down into the donga with a black boy,
poor Jim-jim, who was afterwards, as I said, to perish by an awful
fate, otherwise he would testify to the truth of my plain story. I
began poking among the rocks in the dry basin of the donga, {23}
and had just picked up a pebble--I knew it by the soapy feel for a