The boys were delighted with the idea, but the sole result was the loss of the night’s rest, for though they could hear the ugly brutes uttering their dismal howl all round the camp, not one was seen; and Dick at last declared that they were ventriloquists, and lay in a hole and sent their voices all around.
The next day’s trekking was very arduous, for the ground was dry and sterile, awkward pieces of rock, each big enough to wreck the waggon, protruding from the sand in all directions. The dryness, too, was excessive, and they seemed to have got into a most terribly sterile tract, which now and then was cut by great deep crevices, which were as if the ground had cracked, each of these cracks being big enough to swallow waggon and team if they had inadvertently gone in.
The poor beasts suffered terribly from thirst; but as evening was coming on, the black clouds gathered, and it soon become evident that before long there would be a perfect deluge of rain.
It was upon them before they knew it, almost literally streaming down, and soaking everything; but in spite of the discomfort it was delightful to see the thirsty oxen stop to drink with avidity from the great pools that the rain soon formed. In fact, the storm was so cooling and refreshing that Chicory seemed to revel in it, his dark skin shining with moisture; and the boys themselves did not seem to mind getting wet; but as the night came on intensely dark, and in addition to the pitiless rain there set in a tremendous thunderstorm, with deafening peals, and vivid lightning cutting the black clouds in all directions, the position of the travellers began to get uncomfortable.
The General promised a good halting-place further on; but the darkness grew so intense that the foremost oxen had to be led, and Mr Rogers, and the General, armed with a long pole, went on in advance.
If they could have halted where they were they would gladly have done so; but it seemed madness to stop in that wretched wilderness, and so they crept slowly on, drenched, depressed, and miserable, the thunder deafening them with its peals, and the lightning seeming to crackle as it fell in jagged lines from the skies.
Even the oxen seemed to participate in the general depression, for they went on very slowly, step by step, as if helping their leaders to find a suitable track, so as not to overturn the waggon against some piece of rock.
Suddenly the General gave a warning cry, one that was echoed by Mr Rogers, and the bullocks were pulled up short just as they touched the leaders.
The warning was needed, for as he felt his way onward with the pole the General had suddenly felt it go down into a rift stretching right across their road; and as it proved to be bottomless as far as he could tell, and went to right and left for some distance, there was nothing to be done but to camp just as they were, and wait through the cold wet night for morning.