uid afternoon.

Evening cool was growing up when Frikkie opened his eyes. Christina
was wetting towels for bandages, and her back was towards him, but
she knew instantly, and came swiftly to his side. David leaned
forward breathlessly, and little Paul cried out with the grip of his
hand. They saw a waver of recognition in Frikkie's eyes, a fond
light, and it seemed that his lips moved. Christina laid her ear to
them.

"And--a--shod--horse!" murmured Frikkie. Nothing more. An hour after
he was cold, and David was alone on the stoep, questioning pitiless
skies and groping for God, while Christina knelt beside the bed
within and wept blood from her soul.

They buried Frikkie in a little kraal on the hillside, and David made
the coffin. When he nailed down the lid he was an old man; when the
first red clod rang on it, he felt that life had emptied itself. When
they were back in the house again, Christina turned to him.

"You knew," she said, in a strange voice--"you knew, but you could
not save him." And she laughed aloud. David covered his face with his
hands and groaned, but the next instant Christina's arms were about
him.

Yet of their old life, before the deluge of grief, too much was happy
to be all swamped. Time softened the ruggedness of their wound
somewhat, and a day came when all the world was no longer black.
Little Paul helped them much, for what had once been Frikkie's was
now his; and as he grew before their eyes, his young strength and
beauty were a balm to them. David was much abroad in the lands now,
for he was growing mealies and rapidly becoming a rich man; and as he
rode oft in the morning and rode in at sundown, his new gravity of
mind and mien broke up to the youngster who jumped at the stirrup
with shouts and laughter, and demanded to ride on the saddle-bow. At
intervals, also, Paul laid claim to a gun, to spurs, to a watch, to
all the things that go in procession across a child's horizon, and
Christina was not proof against the impulse to smile at him.

It is not to be thought, of course, that the shock of foreknowledge,
of omnipotent vision, had left David scathless. Though the other
details of the tragedy shared his memory, and elbowed the terrifying
sense of revelation, he would find himself now and again peering at
the future, straining to foresee, as a sailor bores at a fog-bank.
Then he would catch himself, and start back shuddering to the instant
matters about him. Eventualities he co