An intense quiet reigned everywhere. Only in her room the Boer-woman tossed her great arms in her sleep; for she dreamed that a dark shadow with outstretched wings fled slowly over her house, and she moaned and shivered. And the night was very still.

But, quiet as all places were, there was a quite peculiar quiet in the German’s room. Though you strained your ear most carefully you caught no sound of breathing.

He was not gone, for the old coat still hung on the chair — the coat that was to be put on when he met any one; and the bundle and stick were ready for to-morrow’s long march. The old German himself lay there, his wavy black hair just touched with gray thrown back upon the pillow. The old face was lying there alone in the dark, smiling like a little child’s — oh, so peacefully. There is a stranger whose coming, they say, is worse than all the ills of life, from whose presence we flee away trembling; but he comes very tenderly sometimes. And it seemed almost as though Death had known and loved the old man, so gently it touched him. And how could it deal hardly with him — the loving, simple, childlike old man?

So it smoothed out the wrinkles that were in the old forehead, and fixed the passing smile, and sealed the eyes that they might not weep again; and then the short sleep of time was melted into the long, long sleep of eternity.

“How has he grown so young in this one night?” they said when they found him in the morning.

Yes, dear old man; to such as you time brings no age. You die with the purity and innocence of your childhood upon you, though you die in your gray hairs.

CHAPTER IX

HE SEES A GHOST

BONAPARTE stood on the ash-heap. He espied across the plain a moving speck, and he chucked his coat-tails up and down in expectancy of a scene.

The wagon came on slowly. Waldo laid curled among the sacks at the back of the wagon, the hand in his breast resting on the sheep-shearing machine. It was finished now. The right thought had struck him the day before as he sat, half asleep, watching the water go over the mill-wheel. He muttered to himself with half-closed eyes, —

“To-morrow smooth the cogs — tighten the screws a little — show it to them.” Then after a pause — “Over the whole world — the whole world — mine, that I have made!” He pressed the little wheels and pulleys in his pocket till they cracked. Presently his muttering became louder — “And fifty pounds — a black hat for my dadda — for Lyndall a blue silk, very light; and one purple like the earth-bells, and white shoes.” He muttered on — “A box full, full of books. They shall tell me all, all, all,” he added, moving his fingers desiringly: “why the crystals grow in such beautiful shapes; why lightning runs to the iron; why black people are black; why the sunlight makes things warm. I shall read, read, read,” he muttered slowly. Then came over him suddenly what he called “The Presence of God;” a sense of a good, strong something folding him round. He smiled through his half-shut eyes. “Ah, Father, my own Father, it is so sweet to feel you, like the warm sunshine. The Bibles and books cannot tell of you and all I feel you. They are mixed with men’s words; but you — ”