about nine o'clock at night
Yes , even at that moment , with the dry sobs bursting from my aching bosom ; with my dead mother 's face floating before my eyes , her lovely features placid and smiling in death , as I had beheld them only one short hour before ; with the figure of my dead father lying outstretched among the ashes of his ruined home , his body pierced with the spears of the enemy , his weapons still tightly grasped in his clenched hands , and his sightless eyes still glaring defiance at the foe , I could pause to gaze upon the beauty of a South African moonrise ! I could not understand it then ; I was surprised and horrified at what I stigmatised as my callous heartlessness : but I know now that a merciful Providence has so ordered matters that when human suffering , whether mental or physical , reaches a certain degree of acuteness , partial insensibility sets in -- I have known cases where men have slept while being subjected to the most awful tortures -- and such was undoubtedly the case with me on that memorable night . My sensibility had become so benumbed that I had partially lost control of my mental processes , and my thoughts broke away at intervals to dwell for a few moments upon some entirely trivial matter which , one would have supposed , could not possibly have had the slightest interest for me , under the circumstances . Yet so it was ; and in that curious , detached , semi-conscious frame of mind I covered the fourteen miles of veld that lay between Bella Vista and Triannon , most of it at a walking pace , coming in sight of the house about nine o'clock at night . The house at Triannon , built in a sort of elbow formed by one of the spurs of the Great Winter Berg , was not visible from the direction in which I approached until one had rounded the kopje concealing it , when one found oneself close upon it . But as I drew near to my destination I became aware of a deep , ominous silence pervading the scene , which caused me to entertain the most gloomy forebodings . True , the hour was rather late , according to our notions of lateness in the country districts , and the sheep and cattle would have long ago been kraaled for the night ; yet , even so , it was seldom that the stock settled down to rest so early , seldom that , among so many animals , there were not a few restless ones proclaiming their restlessness by bleat or bellow -- and on this particular night there was not a sound of any description to apprise the wayfarer that he was within a quarter of a mile of an opulent farm .