The Grass Is Singing

by Doris Lessing

Contemptuously, the native turned away, and walked back to the house. It seemed he intended to pass it, but as he came level with the veranda he paused, resting his hand on the wall, looking over. It was black, too dark to see. He waited, for the watery glimmer of lightning to illuminate, for the last time, the small house, the veranda, the huddled shape of Mary on the brick, and the dogs who were moving restlessly about her, still whining gently, but uncertainly. It came: a prolonged drench of light, like a wet dawn. And this was his final moment of triumph, a moment so perfect and complete that it took the urgency from thoughts of escape, leaving him indifferent. When the dark returned he took his hand from the wall, and walked slowly off through the rain towards the bush. Though what thoughts of regret, or pity, or perhaps even wounded human affection were compounded with the satisfaction of his completed revenge, it is impossible to say. For, when he had gone perhaps a couple of hundred yards through the soaking bush he stopped, turned aside, and leaned against a tree on an ant heap. And there he would remain, until his pursuers, in their turn, came to find him.