One night it was raining terribly when Maurice got up to leave the drawing-room and go across to his hut. Lightning was streaking between the trees, and great crashes of thunder seemed to fall bodily from the skies and explode like tons of dynamite amongst the kopjes, echoing and detonating through the land.
It was Maurice’s night for the kitten, but she didn’t want to go. She tried hard to get away to me, but he tucked her into the pocket of his mackintosh, and only the top of her little fluffy face was to be seen gazing at me with appealing blue eyes.
“Let her stay for a little while, Maurice,” I said, “just till the storm goes off a little. I’ll bring her over to your door later. She’s afraid of the storm.”
“Nonsense: the storm won’t hurt her. Get back into my pocket, you little devil.”
But the little devil only mewed the louder, and tried the harder to escape, gazing at me imploringly. I turned away with my eyes full of tears. She was so like a child asking to be left with its mother. I knew, too, that I had a wretched night before me with a black companion. I should have been glad of the little furry thing snuggling against me. But it was Maurice’s turn.
“Good-night!” I said abruptly. “I shall stay here till the storm goes down. I’m afraid of the lightning in the trees.”
He said good-night, and went out into the storm, his mackintosh buttoned round him, lantern in hand. I stood watching in the door, and heard him stumbling against tree trunks and swearing, until he found his hut. Then the door banged, and light gleamed through his canvas windows.
Presently when the lightning was not quite so vivid, I wrapped myself up, and locking the drawing-room door beat my way across the compound to my own hut. Though the journey was only a matter of a few seconds I was wet to the skin when I arrived, and hastily throwing off my clothes slipped into bed. As I put out my light I thought I heard Snowie mewing again. I was very tired, and, contrary to my expectation, fell asleep very quickly. Perhaps the vulture was tired out too.
I dreamed I saw Snowie backing away from the fangs of a wolf and crying piteously. I rushed to save her, but the wolf already had her, and was mauling the life out of her. Her screams were terrible—almost human! They woke me up. With a wet forehead I sat up in bed, listening. But I could hear nothing; only bursts of thunder, the whip of the rain on the trees, and the swish and ripple of little streams tearing down the sides of the hill. The storm had increased.