This desperate situation was at last solved by the whirlwind, which soon carried off the top of the tent, and now the canvas walls offered no further protection. There was nothing to do but to wait in the impenetrable darkness, surrounded by two lions, for the storm to abate.
Stasch thought that perhaps these animals had also sought shelter from the storm in the nearby forest, but he was quite sure that they would return after the rain had ceased, and the awful predicament was made worse by the fact that the hurricane had also demolished the hedge.
Everything threatened destruction. Stasch’s rifle was useless, and he had no scope for his energy. Face to face with the storm, the lightning, the tempest, the rain, the darkness, and the lions, he felt himself defenseless, helpless. The canvas walls, beaten by the hurricane, drenched them on all sides, so Stasch threw his arm around Nell and guided her outside the tent; then they both clung to the tree trunk and there waited either death or the merciful help of heaven.
But now suddenly between the blasts of wind came the voice of Kali, which could scarcely be heard above the pattering of the rain.
“Ah! ah! Up the tree! Up the tree!”
And immediately a wet rope let down from above touched the boy’s shoulder.
“Fasten Bibi to it. Kali will draw her up!” cried the negro again.
Stasch did not hesitate a minute. He rolled Nell up in the canvas, so that the rope could not cut her, bound it tightly round her body, lifted her up with outstretched arms, and cried, “Pull!”
There happened to be some low branches on the tree, so Nell’s journey through the air was not long. Kali soon caught her in his strong arms and deposited her between the tree trunk and an enormous branch, which was roomy enough for half a dozen more such tiny beings as she. No blast of wind could blow her down from the tree, and although the water ran down the tree in a stream, the trunk, which was more than ten feet thick, protected her at least from those sheets of water which the tempest drove obliquely toward them.
After the negro had brought the little “Bibi” to this place of safety, he let the rope down for Stasch, but he, like a captain who is the last to leave his sinking ship, ordered Mea to climb up before him.