Maurice was for the Transvaal, I was for Zululand.

So you see we agreed that if another flash came before we counted a hundred, we would go to Zululand, and if it didn't, to Pretoria.

A very good way of settling, wasn't it ?" "Excellent!" I replied, "quite excellent for those who could think of such a thing." As a matter of fact I don't know which of them thought of it because I never inquired.

But I did remember afterwards how Anscombe had tossed with a lucky penny when it was a question whether we should or should not run for the wagon during our difficulty by the Oliphant's River; also when I asked him the reason for this strange proceeding he answered that Providence might inhabit a penny as well as anything else, and that he wished to give it--I mean Providence--a chance.

How much more then, he may have argued, could it inhabit a flash of lightning which has always been considered a divine manifestation from the time of the Roman Jove, and no doubt far before him.
Forty or fifty generations ago, which is not long, our ancestors set great store by the behaviour of lightning and thunder, and doubtless the instinct is still in our blood, in the same way that all our existing superstitions about the moon come down to us from the time when our forefathers worshipped her.