the vast silence of the night.
The storm broke. The first thunder crashed and the lightning forked
jagged-blue through the clouds. Dirk whimpered a little but slept
on.
In the stark, blue light Sean saw that Ruth's cheeks were wet with
tears and when the darkness closed around them again she started to
tremble against him. He reached out for her and she clung to him,
small and warm against his chest, and he could taste the salt of her
tears on his lips.
'Sean, we mustn't.'
But he lifted her and held her across his chest as he walked out into
the night. The lightning blazed again and lit the land with startling
brilliance so he could see the horses huddling heads down, and the
crisp outline of the kopJe above them.
The first raindrops splashed against his shoulders and into his face.
The rain was warm and he walked on carrying Ruth. Then the air was
filled with rain, an encompassing pearly mist of it in the next flash
of lightning, and the night was filled with the odour of rain on dry
earth-a clean warm smell.
In a still morning, washed so clean by the rain that they could see the
mountains, blue and sharp on the southern horizon, they stood together
on the crest of the kopJe.
'That's the tail of the Drakensberg, we've cleared it by twenty miles.
There's very little chance of a Boer patrol this far out.
We can ride by day now. Soon we'll be able to work in again and meet
the railway beyond the battle lines. ' Because of the beauty of the
morning, of the land that dripped away into the great, grassy bowl that
was Natal, and of the woman that stood beside him, Sean was gay.
Because of the promise of an end to the journey and the promise of a
new one with this woman as his companion, he was content.
When he spoke she turned slowly to look at him, her chin lifting in
acknowledgement of his superior height. For the first time Sean
realized that his own mood was not reflected in her eyes.
'You are very lovely,' he said, and still she remained silent, but now
he could recognize the shadows in her eyes as sorrow or something even
stronger.
'Ruth, you'll come with me?'
'No. ' She shook her head slowly, regretfully. The fat black python
of hair rolled across her shoulder and hung down against the honey
chamois leather of her jacket.
'You must.
'I cannot. ' 'But, last night.'
'Last night was madness . . . the storm.
'It was right. You know that.'
'No. It was the storm.' She looked away from him towards the sky.
'And now the storm is ended. ' 'It was more than that. You know it.
It was from the first moment of our meeting. ' 'It was a madness based
upon deceit. Something that I will have to cover with lies-the way we
had to cover it with darkness at the time. ' 'Ruth. My God, don't
