ntil this
storm of rain and thunder should be outpaced, and clear weather be
reached again.

Suddenly Kalinin shouted: "Stop! Look!"

This was because the fitful illumination of a flash had just shown up
in front of us the trunk of an oak tree which had a large black hollow
let into it like a doorway. So into that hollow we crawled as two mice
might have done--laughing aloud in our glee as we did so.

"Here there is room for THREE persons," my companion remarked.
"Evidently it is a hollow that has been burnt out--though rascals
indeed must the burners have been to kindle a fire in a living tree!"

However, the space within the hollow was both confined and redolent of
smoke and dead leaves. Also, heavy drops of rain still bespattered our
heads and shoulders, and at every peal of thunder the tree quivered and
creaked until the strident din around us gave one the illusion of being
afloat in a narrow caique. Meanwhile at every flash of the lightning's
glare, we could see slanting ribands of rain cutting the air with a
network of blue, glistening, vitreous lines.

Presently, the wind began to whistle less loudly, as though now it felt
satisfied at having driven so much productive rain into the ground, and
washed clean the mountain tops, and loosened the stony soil.

"U-oh! U-oh!" hooted a grey mountain owl just over our heads.

"Why, surely it believes the time to be night!" Kalinin commented in a
whisper.

"U-oh! U-u-u-oh!" hooted the bird again, and in response my companion
shouted:

"You have made a mistake, my brother!"

By this time the air was feeling chilly, and a bright grey fog had
streamed over us, and wrapped a semi-transparent veil about the
gnarled, barrel-like trunks with their outgrowing shoots and the few
remaining leaves still adhering.

Far and wide the monotonous din continued to rage--it did so until
conscious thought began almost to be impossible. Yet even as one
strained one's attention, and listened to the rain lashing the fallen
leaves, and pounding the stones, and bespattering the trunks of the
trees, and to the murmuring and splashing of rivulets racing towards
the sea, and to the roaring of torrents as they thundered over the
rocks of the mountains, and to the creaking of trees before the wind,
and to the measured thud-thud of the waves; as one listened to all
this, the thousand sounds seemed to combine into a single heaviness of
hurried clamour, and involuntarily one found oneself st