liage whole streams of water began to penetrate.

The camp-fire darkened. In vain Kali threw whole armfuls into it. On
the surface the wet boughs smoked only, and below, the burning wood
began to hiss and the flame, however much it was replenished, began to
be extinguished.

"When the downpour quenches the fire, the zareba will defend us," Stas
said to pacify Nell.

After which he conducted the little girl into the tent and wrapped her
in plaids, but he himself went out as quickly as possible as the
briefly interrupted roars had broken out again. This time they sounded
considerably nearer and as if they were gleeful.

The downpour intensified with each moment. The rain pattered on the
hard leaves and splashed. If the camp-fire had not been under the
shelter of the boughs, it would have been quenched at once, but as it
was there hovered over it mainly smoke, amid which narrow, blue little
flames glittered. Kali gave up the task and did not add any more
deadwood. Instead he flung a rope around the tree and with its aid
climbed higher and higher on the trunk.

"What are you doing?" Stas asked.

"Kali climbs the tree."

"What for?" shouted the boy, indignant at the negro's selfishness.

Bright, dreadful flashes of lightning rent the darkness and Kali's
reply was drowned by a peal of thunder which shook heaven and the
wilderness. Simultaneously a whirlwind broke out, tugged the boughs of
the tree, swept away in the twinkling of an eye the camp-fire, seized
the embers, still burning under the ashes, and carried them with
sheaves of sparks into the jungle.

Impenetrable darkness temporarily encompassed the camp. A terrible
tropical storm raged on earth and in the sky. Thunder followed thunder,
lightning, lightning. The gory zigzags of thunderbolts rent the sky,
black as a pall. On the neighboring rocks appeared strange blue balls,
which sometimes rolled along the ravine and then burst with a blinding
light and broke out with a peal so terrible that it seemed as if the
rocks would be reduced to powder from the shock.

Afterwards darkness again followed.

Stas became alarmed about Nell and went groping in the darkness to the
tent. The tent, protected by the white-ant hillock and the giant
tree-trunk, stood yet, but the first strong buffet of the whirlwind
might pull out the ropes and carry it the Lord knows where. And the
whirlwind subsided, then broke out again with a fury, carrying waves of
rain, and clouds of le