They struggled on, finding their limbs less helpless. Minute by minute, and just before plunging into the darkness beneath the trees, Jack turned to raise his head slightly, and to his great delight saw ten or twelve of the blacks far below the smoke of their camp, and evidently descending the mountain slope, but the next instant his hopes were crushed, for there in full pursuit, coming along the stony hollow up which they had crawled, was another party of the enemy.
“In with you, Ned,” he whispered, as he dropped down again to creep into the dense growth which swallowed him like a verdant sea, while before they had penetrated many yards the gloom beneath the spreading branches was lit up by a flash of lightning. The next minute the flashes came so quickly that the forest seemed turned into one vast temple, whose black pillars supported a ceiling of flame, and as the deafening detonations shook the earth around them, they were glad to crouch as quickly as they could in a recess formed at the foot of a gigantic tree which sent out flat buttresses on every side, more buttresses passing down into roots.
They were none too soon, for the storm was, brief as the time had been, now in full force; the rain dashed and swept in amongst the groaning trees, and the noise and confusion were deafening, and made the more awe-inspiring by the lashing of the branches as they were driven here and there by the wind.
“What’s that, sir?” cried Ned, with his lips to his companion’s ear, for a tremendous crash had succeeded a roar of thunder.
“Tree gone down.”
“Oh!” said Ned, pressing Jack close up into the recess. “Well, so long as it ain’t this one I suppose we mustn’t grumble. But I’d rather have undressed myself before I took my bath, sir, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, how can you talk like that!” shouted Jack.
“’Cause I feel so jolly and satisfied,” said Ned, with his lips again to Jack’s ear. “A bit ago it was all over with us, going to be took and tied up again, sir. P’r’aps to be taken away and fatted and eaten. Now there’s nothing the matter, only it’s a bit dark. Don’t seem, sir, as if I’m doing any good in trying to be your umbrella. You are a little moist, I suppose, sir?”
“Moist, Ned! I’m soaking; I can feel the water running down into my boots.”
“Oh, never mind, sir. We’ll have a good wring out as soon as the storm’s over. But my word, I never saw lightning like this before, and never felt it rain so hard.”