The hour was at hand, its herald the tempest, the birth-pangs of earth in travail of a soul.
A sudden fearful excitement shook Graeme. His knees knocked together, he rocked and swayed, and then the mood passed, and, steady once more, he strode forward till he stood over the lifeless body below, his livid face raised to the darkened sky.
"Stara!" he called, but only the thunder of an outraged God responded. "Stara! Stara!" he shouted again, and then stopped, for the answer had come.
A flash of blue light, a rending crash overhead, and, to the swell of harp and organ, the heavens yawned slowly asunder, and the dead woman, white fire rolling around her, stood looking down upon him. For a moment he remained, with face lit up and hands outstretched towards her, and then, with one loud triumphant cry of "Stara!" fell forward on his face, quivered for a moment, and was still.
Almost as quick as the lightning-flash, from behind the wall at the far side of the cemetery a man came running up, followed slowly and seemingly unwillingly by another.
"Quick, Selbourne," said the first, "fetch a Cape cart; look sharp, man, the storm will be on us in a minute. God! did you ever see anything like that last flash?"
Richard came slowly up to where the speaker was kneeling, with Graeme's head against his shoulder, while he was forcing the neck of a small phial between the clenched teeth.
"What's the matter," he said coolly, "lightning struck him? If so, he ought to be dead. Is he?"
"Nothing of the kind; he's as alive as you or I."
"What's wrong, then?"