mob. When they went out again Menzi had departed, and so had the others.
The place was empty.

The following day was Sunday, and Thomas locked the church on the
inner side, and read the service with Dorcas and Tabitha for sole
congregation. It was a melancholy business, for some sense of evil
seemed to hang over all three of them, also over everybody else, for the
Christians went about with dejected looks and not one person spoke to
them. Only Ivana came at night as usual to sleep with Tabitha, though
even she said nothing.

Next morning they woke up to find the heavens black with clouds, heavy,
ominous clouds; the truth being that the drought was drawing to its
natural end. Thomas noted this, and reflected bitterly how hard it was
that this end should not have come twenty-four hours earlier. But so
events had been decreed and he was helpless.

By midday it began to rain, lightly at first, and from his rock he could
see the people, looking unnatural and distorted in that strange gloom,
for the clouds had descended almost to the earth, rushing about, holding
out their hands as though to clasp the blessed moisture and talking
excitedly one to the other. Soon they were driven into their huts, for
the rain turned into a kind of waterspout. Never had such rain been
known in Sisa-Land.

All that afternoon it poured, and all the night with ever-increasing
violence; yes, and all the following morning, so that by noon
Thomas's rain-gauge showed that over twelve inches had fallen in about
twenty-four hours, and it was still raining. Water rushed down from the
koppie; even their well-built house could not keep out the wet, and, to