Maria placed one of the cooking-pots and two tin plates, knives, and forks beside Harry and his brother, with two flat cakes of ground maize.
"Sit down and have your food at once," Harry said to her. "The rain will be down in bucketfuls before many minutes."
They were soon joined by Dias and José, the latter bringing up a large can of water from the stream. They had just finished when large drops of rain began to patter on the ground.
"Never mind the things," Harry said as he leapt to his feet. "Crawl under shelter at once; it is no use getting a wetting."
All at once made for the tents; and they were but just in time, for the rain began to fall in torrents, and a peal of thunder crashed out overhead as they got under the canvas.
"This is our first experience of this sort of thing," Harry said, as he and his brother lit their pipes half-sitting and half-reclining on their beds. "I rather wondered why Dias put the tents on this little bit of rising ground, which did not look so soft or tempting as the level; but I see now that he acted very wisely, for we should have been flooded in no time if we had been lower down. As it is, I am by no means sure that we shan't have the water in. Another time we will take the precaution to make trenches round the tents when we pitch them. However, we have got a waterproof sheet underneath the beds, so I expect it will be all right."
"I hope so. Anyhow, we had better see that the edges are turned up all round, so that the water cannot run over them. By Jove! it does come down. We can hardly hear each other speak."
Suddenly the entrance to the tent was thrust aside.
"Here is a candle, señors."
It was thrown in, and Dias ran back into his own tent, which was but a few yards away, before Harry could remonstrate at his coming out.