Going slowly down the cutting to the Second Drift, the course of the river was shown up by the lightning, and one bluish gleam in particular lit up the scene with such unsurpassable vividness that long after all was black again the eye retained a view of dark water in swirls and curves of wonderful grace, of foam-crested breakers and jets of spray, of swaying shrubs and bent, quivering reeds.
Nairn recalled another such night when his horse, which had paused to sniff before facing the flood, jerked his head up with a snort as a blinding flash had shown him a white face for an instant above the water. The fixed stare that the dead eyes gave him lingered long after succeeding flashes had shown an unbroken surface of river again. But he did not speak of this.
They drove slowly over the little flat through which the river ran, and as that was barely covered by the flood they knew that the river was just passable for the spider, but it meant getting a wetting as it was dangerously near flood mark.
Piet pulled up. The ladies and the baases, he said, could take the footpath along the mountains over the krantzes and avoid the two drifts. It was only four miles to the next hotel. He would like to outspan and stay where he was—the river was too full, and the next drift would be worse still. The river was coming down.
But Heron was obstinate, and Nairn, who knew the footpath past the Golden Valley, knew it to be an impossible alternative for ladies, at night; so Heron called out: “Kate, you grip the rail, and Nairn will look after you! You hang on to me, Nell!” They went in, and the water washed on to the seats, and the spider swayed to the stream; but the horses headed up bravely, and buoying on the waters, or sousing underneath, half swimming and half wading, they pulled through.
“Hold up, Nell! hold up, little woman! Don’t cry now, we’re as safe as houses!” was what Nairn heard from the opposite seat.
What happened beside him was that his companion’s grasp loosened on the rail, and as the spider rose up the soft, sandy bank, she slid back against him with her weight on the arm he had passed behind her as protection, and her cheek against his shoulder.
When they pulled up on the level road again, while her sister was laughing off her tears, Kate pulled herself together with an effort, and said, with a half-sobbing laugh:
“I was very fri—frightened that time. I—I think I should have fallen out but for you.”
Then the storm broke over them, and the rain came down in blinding torrents, and the horses, ducking and swaying before it, moved slowly on. Flash after flash lit up the hills above and the river below as they toiled along where the road was cut out of the precipitous hillside. Every furrow was a stream, every gutter a watercourse; the water seemed to gush from the very earth; the river itself was a seething mud-red torrent.