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Away they went once more, careering through the gathering darkness. It was delightful indeed to have to urge one weary leg past the other no more, but be borne along towards food, fire, and bed. But their adventures were not so nearly over as they imagined. Once more the hail fell furiously huge hailstones, each made of many, half-melted and welded together into solid lumps of ice.
She had landed on the island, sure of favourable predictions, but now her hopes lay as if crushed by hailstones. If Bias, who was superior to an ordinary slave, was right, she was to be degraded to a toy and useful tool by the man who had already proved his pernicious power over other women of her race, even her own young sister, whom she had hitherto guarded with faithful care.
But this evening was colder than any evening lately, by reason of that blusterous rising wind, which blew the rain-drops against the window-panes with as sharp a rattle as if they had been hailstones; and Mr. Whitelaw coming in presently, disconsolate and dripping, was by no means inclined to abide by his own decision about the fires. "Why the haven't you got a fire here?" he demanded savagely.
There the wind roared and blustered its loudest; it whirled round and round the quaint castellated building, battering the gates and moving their heavy iron hinges to a most dolorous groaning; it flung rattling hailstones at the narrow windows, and raged and howled at every corner and through every crevice; while snaky twists of lightning played threateningly over the tall iron Cross that surmounted the roof, as though bent on striking it down and splitting open the firm old walls it guarded.
Flowers, pieces of glass and hailstones were all heaped together in our once beautiful garden. Everything was shattered! Where was the father? We searched for him. Last of all we found him in the big conservatory, of which every pane of glass was broken. He was seated on a wheelbarrow in the midst of the débris which covered the ground. Alexix and Benjamin stood beside him silently.
Is there nothing in dark providences, for the sake of the sight and observation of which such a day may be rendered lovely, when it is upon us? Is there nothing of God, of his wisdom and power and goodness, to be seen in thunder and lightning, in hailstones, in storms and darkness and tempests? Why then is it said, he hath his way in the whirlwind and storm?
The Germans must have been awfully sore, because they turned loose a barrage of shrapnel, with a few "Minnies" and "whizz bangs" intermixed. The shells were dropping into our front line like hailstones. To get even, we could have left the prisoners in the fire trench, in charge of the men on guard and let them click Fritz's strafeing but Tommy does not treat prisoners that way.
But they were not only tipsy; it was plain that they were furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones, and every now and then there came forth such an explosion as I thought was sure to end in blows. But each time the quarrel passed off and the voices grumbled lower for a while, until the next crisis came and in its turn passed away without result.
The whole thing was so sudden that, before I could realise the shock, moral as well as physical, I found the hailstones beating me down. At the same time I had a strange, dominating feeling that I was not alone. I looked towards the tomb.
Just as Anton Lundt emerged, a twenty-four pounder struck the water within a few yards of his back, but ricochetted exactly over his head, merely stunning him for a moment with the spray. He swam straight as an arrow, with the long and powerful strokes of a first-rate swimmer; and occasionally, when the grape and musket shots whistled thick as hailstones around him, he dexterously dived.
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