Presently, having recovered their breath, they sat up and looked at each other by lightning light, which was all there was. He was a handsome lad of about seventeen, though short for his years; sturdy in build, very fair-skinned and curiously enough with a singular resemblance to Rachel, except that his hair was a few shades darker than hers. They had the same clear grey eyes, and the same well-cut features; indeed seen together, most people would have thought them brother and sister, and remarked upon their family likeness. Rachel spoke the first. “Who are you?” she shouted into his ear in one of the intervals of darkness, “and why did you come here?” “My name is Richard Darrien,” he answered at the top of his voice, “and I don’t know why I came. I suppose something sent me to save you.” “Yes,” she replied with conviction, “something sent you. If you had not come I should be dead, shouldn’t I? In glory, as my father says.” “I don’t know about glory, or what it is,” he remarked, after thinking this saying over, “but you would have been rolling out to sea in the flood water, like that buffalo, with not a whole bone in you, which isn’t my idea of glory.” “That’s because your father isn’t a missionary,” said Rachel. “No, he is an officer, naval officer, or at least he was, now he trades and hunts. We are coming down from Natal. But what’s your name?” “Rachel Dove.” “Well, Rachel Dove—that’s very pretty, Rachel Dove, as you would be if you were cleaner—it is going to rain presently. Is there any place where we can shelter here?” “I am as clean as you are,” she answered indignantly. “The river muddied me, that’s all. You can go and shelter, I will stop and let the rain wash me.” “And die of the cold or be struck by lightning. Of course I knew you weren’t dirty really. Is there any place?” She nodded, mollified. “I think I know one. Come,” and she stretched out her hand. He took it, and thus hand in hand they made their way to the highest point of the island where the trees grew, for here the rocks piled up together made a kind of cave in which Rachel and her mother had sat for a little while when they visited the place. As they groped their way towards it the lightning blazed out and they saw a great jagged flash strike the tallest tree and shatter it, causing some wild beast that had sheltered there to rush past them snorting. “That doesn’t look very safe,” said Richard halting, “but come on, it isn’t likely to hit the same spot twice.” “Hadn’t you better leave your gun?” she suggested, for all this while that weapon had been slung to his back and she knew that lightning has an affinity for iron. “Certainly not,” he answered, “it is a new one which my father gave me, and I won’t be parted from it.”