CHAPTER 1.I.Shadows From Child-Life.
The Watch.
The full African moon poured down its light from the blue sky into the wide, lonely plain.

The dry, sandy earth, with its coating of stunted karoo bushes a few inches high, the low hills that skirted the plain, the milk-bushes with their long finger-like leaves, all were touched by a weird and an almost oppressive beauty as they lay in the white light.
In one spot only was the solemn monotony of the plain broken.

Near the centre a small solitary kopje rose.

Alone it lay there, a heap of round ironstones piled one upon another, as over some giant's grave.

Here and there a few tufts of grass or small succulent plants had sprung up among its stones, and on the very summit a clump of prickly-pears lifted their thorny arms, and reflected, as from mirrors, the moonlight on their broad fleshy leaves.