Since he had come to bed, how many had gone! And the watch said, "Eternity, eternity, eternity!" "Stop them! stop them!" cried the child.
And all the while the watch kept ticking on; just like God's will, that never changes or alters, you may do what you please.
Great beads of perspiration stood on the boy's forehead.

He climbed out of bed and lay with his face turned to the mud floor.
"Oh, God, God! save them!" he cried in agony.

"Only some, only a few! Only for each moment I am praying here one!" He folded his little hands upon his head.

"God! God! save them!" He grovelled on the floor.
Oh, the long, long ages of the past, in which they had gone over! Oh, the long, long future, in which they would pass away! Oh, God! the long, long, long eternity, which has no end! The child wept, and crept closer to the ground.
***** The Sacrifice.
The farm by daylight was not as the farm by moonlight.

The plain was a weary flat of loose red sand, sparsely covered by dry karoo bushes, that cracked beneath the tread like tinder, and showed the red earth everywhere.