And two o'clock came. By that time the night was grown dull
and cloudy. The wild cat had gone to its home on the kopje; the Kaffer dog
had found a bone, and lay gnawing it.
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 tomorrow's long march. The old German himself lay there, his wavy
black hair just touched with grey 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.
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