Through it Jess, scared and wet to the skin, managed to climb up the natural steps, now made almost impassable by the prevailing gloom and the rush of water from the table-top of the mountain, and on across the sodden plain, down the rocky path on the farther side, past the little walled-in cemetery with the four red gums planted at its corners, in which a stranger who had died at Mooifontein lay buried, and so, just as the darkness of the wet night came down like a cloud, home at last.

At the back-door stood her old uncle with a lantern.
"Is that you, Jess ?" he called out in his stentorian tones.

"Lord! what a sight!" as she emerged, her sodden dress clinging to her slight form, her hands torn with clambering over the rocks, her curling hair which had broken loose hanging down her back and half covering her face.
"Lord! what a sight!" he ejaculated again.

"Why, Jess, where have you been?
Captain Niel has gone out to look for you with the Kafirs." "I have been sketching in Leeuwen Kloof, and got caught in the storm.
There, uncle, let me pass, I want to take these wet things off.

It is a bitter night," and she ran to her room, leaving a long trail of water behind her as she passed.