ver 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
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.