Once more the saying of the old Boer general rose in his mind: "I believe that there is a God--I believe that God sets a limit to a man's doings.

If he is going too far, God _kills him_." What a dreadful thing it would be if the old fool were right after all! Supposing that there were a God, and God were to kill him to-night, and hurry off his soul, if he had one, to some dim place of unending fear! All his superstitions awoke at the thought, and he shivered so violently that the shadow of the shiver caused the outlines of the gigantic form upon the canvas to tremble visibly.
Then rising with an angry curse, Muller hastily threw off his outer clothing, and having turned down but not extinguished the rough parrafine lamp, he flung himself down upon the little camp bedstead, which creaked and groaned beneath his weight like a thing in pain.
Now came silence, only broken by the drip, drip of the rain from the gum leaves overhead, and the rattling of the boughs whenever a breath of air stirred them.

It was an eerie and depressing night, a night that might well have tried the nerves of any strong man who, wet through and worn out, was obliged to crouch upon the open veldt and endure it.

How much more awful was it then to the unfortunate woman who, half broken-hearted, fever-stricken, and well-nigh crazed with the suffering of mind and body, waited in it to see murder done! Slowly the minutes passed, and at every raindrop or rustle of a bough her guilty conscience summoned up a host of fears.

But by the mere power of her will she kept them down.