Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/230

218 above the spot where the hawker's wife was murdered. She was dressed in black, and had black hair, and her face was dead white. At first I thought that it was some woman who wanted a lift, or a chap in woman's clothes playing the ghost, so I pulled up. And when I looked round again she was gone. I thought she'd crouched under the cart, so I whipped up the horse and then looked round again, but there was nothing there. Then I reckon I drove home as fast as Andy's uncle did. You needn't believe me unless you like."

"Thunderstorm coming," said Dave, sniffing and looking round the corner to the east. "I thought this weather would bring something."

"My oath," said Jim, "a regular old-man storm, too."

The big, blue-black bank of storm cloud rose bodily from the east, and was right overhead and sweeping down the sunset in a very few minutes. Then the lightning blazed out, and swallowed up daylight as well as darkness. But it was not a rain storm—it was the biggest hail storm ever experienced in that district. Orchards and vineyards were stripped, and many were ruined. Some said there were stones as big as hen's eggs; some said the storm lasted over an hour, and some said more—but the time was probably half or three-quarters of an hour. Hail lay feet deep in the old diggers' holes for a fortnight after. The mates half expected the hail to come through the roof of the hut.

Just as the storm began to hold up a little, they heard a louder pattering outside, and a bang at the