together, lying under the trees, with the sun-baked roses dropping
their petals on our feet, until supper was ready. It was a
beautiful supper, as cold and as iced as you could wish; and we
stayed long over it.

I had felt that the air was growing hotter and hotter; but nobody
seemed to notice it until the moon went out and a burning hot wind
began lashing the orange-trees with a sound like the noise of the
sea. Before we knew where we were, the dust-storm was on us, and
everything was roaring, whirling darkness. The supper-table was
blown bodily into the tank. We were afraid of staying anywhere
near the old tomb for fear it might be blown down. So we felt our
way to the orange-trees where the horses were picketed and waited
for the storm to blow over. Then the little light that was left
vanished, and you could not see your hand before your face. The
air was heavy with dust and sand from the bed of the river, that
filled boots and pockets and drifted down necks and coated eyebrows
and moustaches. It was one of the worst dust-storms of the year.
We were all huddled together close to the trembling horses, with
the thunder clattering overhead, and the lightning spurting like
water from a sluice, all ways at once. There was no danger, of
course, unless the horses broke loose. I was standing with my head
downward and my hands over my mouth, hearing the trees thrashing
each other. I could not see who was next me till the flashes came.
Then I found that I was packed near Saumarez and the eldest Miss
Copleigh, with my own horse just in front of me. I recognized the
eldest Miss Copleigh, because she had a pagri round her helmet, and
the younger had not. All the electricity in the air had gone into
my body and I was quivering and tingling from head to foot--exactly
as a corn shoots and tingles before rain. It was a grand storm.