e, and fully alive to the fact, that he was a ruined
man. His labour for the previous three years was totally lost, and his
property swept entirely away. Only life was spared,--but for that he
felt so thankful as to feel his losses slightly at the time. The
brothers Skyd were also painfully alive to the fact that they were
ruined, and as they staggered and stumbled along, a sinking of heart
unusual to their gay and cheerful natures seemed to have the effect of
sinking their steps deeper in the soft mire through which they waded.

Only two of the party were in any degree cheerful. Gertie, although
overwhelmed by the sudden calamity, which she had yet very imperfectly
realised, felt a degree of comfort--a sort of under-current of peace--at
being borne so safely along in such powerful arms; and Hans Marais, huge
and deep-chested though he was, felt a strange and mysterious sensation
that his heart had grown too large for his body that night. It
perplexed him much at the time, and seemed quite unaccountable!

The storm had revelled furiously round the widow Merton's wattle-and-dab
cottage, and the water had risen to within a few feet of its
foundations, but the effect on her mind was as nothing compared with
that produced by the sudden storming of her stronghold by the Mount Hope
family in the dead of night, or rather in the small hours of morning.
The widow was hospitable. She and her sons at once set about making the
unfortunates as comfortable as the extent of their habitation and the
state of their larder would admit.

But the widow Merton was not the only one of the Albany settlers who had
to offer hospitality during the continuance of that terrible catastrophe
of 1823, and Edwin Brook's was not the only family that was forced to
accept it.

All over the land the devastating flood passed like the besom of
destruction. Hundreds of those who had struggled manfully against the
blight of the wheat crops, and Kafir thefts, and bandit raids, and
oppression on the part of those who ought to have afforded aid and
protection, were sunk to the zero of misfortune and despair by this
overwhelming calamity, for in many cases the ruin was total and
apparently irremediable. Everywhere standing crops, implements of
husbandry, and even dwellings, were swept away, and whole families found
themselves suddenly in a state of utter destitution. The evil was too
wide-spread to admit of the few who were fortunate enough to escape