A CONQUERING COWARD
..Tingling, dumb, burying Blackness....confusing!....We stuck to our trail,
But I wonder’d at times whether Rangi was travelling head foremost or tail.
Roar of the rain; but, behind it, the stillness and silence of Death—
Or of Something pois’d, ready for pouncing....just pausing for breath....
Ah!....at that flash, Rangi shudder’d all through, she rear’d up, and stopp’d short;
I could feel, through the instant, insistent explosion, her terrified snort.
But “Oh, there! Hullo, there!” Thick darkness again the lit veld overran,
But I’d seen them. Thank Heaven! I’d seen them—a horse, and a man!
Briton, or Burgher? Well, anyway, human!—
What’s that?....But the noise
Of the rain, on the ground and against us cascading, made off with his voice.
So I saw to my rifle (I’d got that dispatch), and then I holla’d, too—
Even a Burgher, and lead, would be things that I knew!
Shift position...Then Lightning! the sky-line!—Ay, Boer, sure enough and to spare....
Black....What on earth was he doing, though, sideways like that in the air?
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