the despair of Dorcas, several of the rooms were flooded and some of
the new furniture was spoiled. The river beneath had become a raging
torrent, and was rising every hour. Already it was over its banks, and
the water had got into the huts of the Chief's kraal and the village
round it, so that their occupants were obliged to seek safety upon the
lower rocks of the koppie, where they sat shivering in the wet.

Night came at last, and through the darkness they heard cries as of
people in distress. The long hours wore away till dawn, a melancholy
dawn, for still it rained, though more lightly now, and no sun could be
seen.

"Father," cried Tabitha, who, clad in oilskins, had gone a little way
down the road, "come here and look."

He went. The child pointed to the village below, or rather what had
been the village, for now there was none. It had gone and with it Kosa's
kraal; the site was a pool, the huts had vanished, all of them, and some
of the roofs lay upon the sides of the koppie, looking like overturned
coracles. Only the church and the graveyard remained, for those stood on
slightly higher ground by the banks of the river.

A little while later a miserable and dejected crowd arrived at the
mission-house, wrapped up in blankets or anything else that they had
managed to save.

"What do you want?" asked Thomas.

"Teacher," replied the Chief Kosa, with twitching face and rolling eyes,
"we want you to come down to the church and pray for us. Our houses are