the top of the commode, filled it, then placed the bottle beside him on
the floor and wriggled into a more comfortable position against the
commode.
In front of him his artificial leg twisted on its broken straps at an
unnatural angle below the knee. He contemplated it, sipping the brandy
slowly and feeling it numb the taste-buds of his tongue.
The leg was the centre of his existence. Insensate, unmoving, still as
the eye of a great storm upon which the whole turmoil of his life
revolved. The leg-always the leg. Always and only the leg.
Now under the lulling spell of the liquor he had drunk, from the
stillness at the centre where the leg lay, he looked outward at the
gigantic shadows of the ast, and found them preserved and perfect, not
distorted or blurred by time, whole and cornI, plete in each detail.
While they paraded through his mind, the night telescoped 'in upon
itself so that time had no significance. The hours endured for a few
minutes and were gone while the level in the bottle fell and he sat
against the commode sipping at the tumbler and watching while the night
wasted away. In the dawn the final act was played out before him.
Himself on a horse in the darkness riding in cold soft rain towards
Theuniskraal. One window showing a yellow oblong of
A
lantern light, the rest dark in the greater dark mass of the
homestead.
The unaccountable premonition of coming horror closing cold and soft as
the rain around him, the silence spoiled only by the crunch of his
horse's hooves in the gravel of the drive. The thunW of his peg leg as
he climbed the front steps and the chill of the brass doorknob in his
hand as he turned it and pushed it in upon the silence.
His own voice slurred with drink and dread. 'Hello. Where's
everybody? Anna! Anna! I'm back! ' The blue flare of his match and
the smell of burnt sulphur and paraffin as he lit the lamp, then the
urgent echoing thump of his peg leg along the passage.
'Anna, Anna, where are you?
Anna, his bride, lay upon the bed in the darkened room, naked, turning
quickly away from the light, but he had seen the dead-white face with
swollen and bruised lips.
The lamp from the table threw bloated shadows on the wall as he stooped
over and gently drew down the petticoats to cover the whiteness of her
lower body, then turned her face to him.
'My darling, oh Anna, my darling. what's happened?' Through the torn
blouse her breasts were engorged and darkly nippled with pregnancy.
'Are you hurt? Who? Tell me who did it? ' But she covered her face
and broken lips with her hands.
'My darling, my poor darling. Who was it-one of the servants ?
'No.
'Please tell me, Anna. What happened?
Suddenly her arms were about his neck and her lips close against his
ear. 'You know, Garry! You know who did it.
'No, I swear I don't. Please tell me. ' Her voice tight and hoarse
