"Let her rip," said Sanders, and the elements answered instanter.
A jagged blue streak of flame leapt from the yellow skies, a deafening crack-crash of thunder broke overhead, and suddenly a great wind smote the little steamer at her shelter, and set the tops of the trees bowing with grave unanimity.
Sanders reached his cabin, slid back the door, and pulled it back to its place after him.
In the stuffy calm of his cabin he surveyed the storm through his window, for his cabin was on the top deck and he could command as extensive a view of the scene as it was possible to see from the little bay.
He saw the placid waters of the big river lashed to waves; saw tree after tree sway and snap as M'shimba M'shamba stalked terribly through the forest; heard the high piercing howl of the tempest punctuated by the ripping crack of the thunder, and was glad in the manner of the Philistine that he was not where other men were.
Night came with alarming swiftness.
Half an hour before, at the first sign of the cyclone, he had steered for the first likely mooring. In the last rays of a blood-red sun he had brought his boat to land.
Now it was pitch dark—almost as he stood watching the mad passion of the storm it faded first into grey, then into inky blue—then night obliterated the view.
He groped for the switch and turned it, and the cabin was filled with soft light. There was a small telephone connecting the cabin with the Houssa guard, and he pressed the button and called the attention of Sergeant Abiboo to his need.
"Get men to watch the hawsers," he instructed, and a guttural response answered him.