“Now,” said Tom, “we got to swim across and go back and plant in the scrub an’ watch for them fellars that are going to borry our boat to-night.”
The water was dark and felt colder. Both boys shivered at the brink. They had taken off their clothes and tied them carefully on their shoulders to keep dry; but when they got over the river their clothes were more or less wet, and they shivered again getting into them. Just as they were dressed the first flash of lightning lit the sky, bringing out the ice palaces and snow battlements in vivid detail.
“Hist!” exclaimed Tom. “Count!”
“One, two, three,”—he went up to sixty.
Then a low muffled sound of thunder and the leaves of the trees rustled at a passing breath of wind.
“It’s a long way off yet,” said the elder lad, “an’ it mightn’t come this way either. I ain’t frightened of thunder, are you?”
“No,” replied Dave, “thunder can’t do you no harm unless there’s lookin’ glasses about, but it’s gettin’ awful dark.”
“Come on,” cried Tom, “we’ll go up an’ hide in the lantana. We won’t get wet there, even if it does rain.”
By the time they reached the creek where the boat was moored it was pitch dark, excepting now and then when a great flash of lightning lit up the whole jungle in weird bluish light, and made everything visible for a short second, even to the water shadows of overhanging trees.
Tom and Dave crept in under the thicket and hid waiting.