Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/171

 drops began to fall. I was very soon wet through. Scampering back towards the waggon, I found three of the natives still huddling round the all but extinguished fire, but my own people gone to a little distance to secure some plants that had been left out to dry, and to bring in the guns that happened to be outside against a tree close by. I jumped into the waggon, and almost immediately my friends returned. They handed me the plants all right, and were just passing me the guns, when a flash of lightning struck the ground close behind us; the crash of thunder that followed was terrific. In eager haste to hang my gun in its proper place inside the waggon, I had caught hold of the barrel with my left hand, but the shock of the thunder so startled my friend that he jerked one of the triggers, and the charge of hare-shot with which it was loaded went off. I can remember nothing beyond the glare and the noise and a momentary sensation of pain; stunned by the injury, I lost my balance and fell out of the waggon.

It was at first supposed that I was dead; and most providential it was that the wounds were not fatal. The shot had passed right through my left hand, and grazing my left temple, had pierced the brim of my hat, leaving the holes blocked up with my hair. For two days I was completely blind with the eye, and suffered from acute inflammation in it for more than a fortnight.

A native view of the occurrence should not be left without record. While my friends in the pre- Rh