“Oh, I cannot see! I cannot see! Where am I?” she cried.

When Gregory reached her she had fallen with her face against the sharp foot of the wardrobe and cut her forehead. Very tenderly he raised the little crushed heap of muslin and ribbons, and laid it on the bed. Doss climbed up, and sat looking down at it. Very softly Gregory’s hands disrobed her.

“You will be stronger to-morrow, and then we shall try again,” he said, but she neither looked at him nor stirred.

When he had undressed her, and laid her in bed, Doss stretched himself across her feet and lay whining softly.

So she lay all that morning, and all that afternoon.

Again and again Gregory crept close to the bedside and looked at her; but she did not speak to him. Was it stupor or was it sleep that shone under those half-closed eyelids? Gregory could not tell.

At last in the evening he bent over her.

“The oxen have come,” he said; “we can start to-morrow if you like. Shall I get the wagon ready to-night?” Twice he repeated his question. Then she looked up at him, and Gregory saw that all hope had died out of the beautiful eyes. It was not stupor that shone there, it was despair.

“Yes, let us go,” she said.

“It makes no difference,” said the Doctor; “staying or going; it is close now.”

So the next day Gregory carried her out in his arms to the wagon which stood “inspanned” before the door. As he laid her down on the “kartel” she looked far out across the plain. For the first time she spoke that day.

“That blue mountain, far away; let us stop when we get to it, not before.” She closed her eyes again. He drew the sails down before and behind, and the wagon rolled away slowly. The landlady and the nigger stood to watch it from the “stoep.”

Very silently the great wagon rolled along the grass-covered plain. The driver on the front box did not clap his whip or call to his oxen, and Gregory sat beside him with folded arms. Behind them, in the closed wagon, she lay with the dog at her feet, very quiet, with folded hands. He, Gregory, dared not be in there. Like Hagar, when she laid her treasure down in the wilderness, he sat afar off: — “For Hagar said, Let me not see the death of the child.”

Evening came, and yet the blue mountain was not reached, and all the next day they rode on slowly, but still it was far off. Only at evening they reached it; not blue now, but low and brown, covered with long waving grasses and rough stones. They drew the wagon up close to its foot for the night. It was a sheltered, warm spot.

When the dark night had come, when the tired oxen were tied to the wheels, and the driver and leader had rolled themselves in their blankets before the fire, and gone to sleep, then Gregory fastened down the sails of the wagon securely. He fixed a long candle near the head of the bed, and lay down himself on the floor of the wagon near the back. He leaned his head against the “kartel,” and listened to the chewing of the tired oxen, and to the crackling of the fire, till, overpowered by weariness, he fell into a heavy sleep. Then all was very still in the wagon. The dog slept on his mistress’ feet, and only two mosquitoes, creeping in through a gap in the front sail, buzzed drearily round.