m bolting, and so dashing
themselves, the waggon, and its occupants to pieces against the trees.

The storm was at its fiercest when suddenly the party found themselves
enveloped in a blinding blaze of greenish-blue light; simultaneously
there came a terrific rattling crash, as though the universe had burst
asunder; the occupants of the waggon--blinded, and deafened by the
dazzling brilliancy of the flash and the tremendous report which
accompanied it--felt themselves hurled violently to the earth, and then
followed oblivion.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE PURSUIT.

When George Leicester at last awoke from his stupor, and had
sufficiently recovered his scattered senses to remember where he was,
the strength and fury of the storm had passed, the lightning-flashes
being much less vivid, and coming at considerably longer intervals. But
the rain was descending in a perfect deluge, and, notwithstanding the
shelter of the thick overhanging foliage, the ground was already so
completely flooded that George at first thought he was lying in the bed
of some shallow watercourse. He staggered to his feet, chill and
dripping wet, and, taking advantage of the intermittent light afforded
by the lightning, looked around him to ascertain, if possible, what had
actually happened; and he then saw that an immense tree close by had
been shivered from top to bottom by the lightning, and, falling across
their path, had killed both mules, and completely wrecked the waggon.

His own escape and that of his companions, if indeed they _had_ escaped,
had been simply miraculous, a huge branch having struck the waggon only
about one foot behind the seat upon which they had been sitting. The
ground was littered with splinters, and encumbered with the spreading
branches of the fallen tree, and among these he proceeded to search for
Tom and Walford.

A low moaning sound some short distance on his right told him that in
that direction he would probably find one of the missing, and, groping
his way cautiously to the spot, he found the unfortunate Walford lying
on his back, with the water surging round him like a mill-race, and a
large branch of the fallen tree lying across his breast and pinning him
down. By exerting his whole strength, George managed to bear up the
branch sufficiently for Walford to work his way from underneath it, and
then he helped the poor wretch to his feet, inquiring at the same time
if he had received any serious hurt. Unfor