The storm thrust a way into the tenderer places of Surprise. It pushed through the patches in the canvas roofs, and crept through the crevices of the walls, streaming across the floors while Mrs. Boulder, Mrs. Niven and Mrs. Bloxham, wakened from sleep, peered upon it from their beds.
Said Mrs. Boulder, putting forth a heavy hand for the matches and nudging Boulder awake. "Stow that, man, and get to it. There's something doing, I reckon."
Mrs. Niven, striking a match upon like scene, lifted up dolorous voice. "Are you never goin' to raise a finger to help me, but'll stay snorin' there till the place falls in atop of us? There won't be a dry inch in another half hour, an' not two sticks of wood chopped, I've no doubt."
Over all the camp dismal lights flicker up behind the walls where Bullock, Bloxham and Johnson pass barefooted upon their errands.
At Kaloona the storm lasted through the hours of dark. The rain roared up and down the iron roofs. The lightning flamed outside the windows. The thunder bellowed in the sky. Ever and anon a hurricane of wind clapped hold of the house and shook it, or for an instant the roar of rain died, as though a sudden giant hand had plucked away the heavens. As each blaze of lightning wrenched the landscape from the dark, Power from his standing place by the window, and Mrs. Elliott and Maggie from the security of bed, looked upon a country over which crept a wide reach of water.
Power was considering bed when the storm began and set him thinking of other things. He lit a pipe and stood before the window spectator of events. He stood for a long time without turning round, but left his post presently, picked up the lamp from the table and made the way down a passage. He stopped before a door and hammered upon it until it opened. By the light of the lamp Mrs. Elliott was discovered confronting him, more ample than ever in her wide nightgown. He shouted at her above the cry of the rain.
"How are you doing in there? Nothing coming through yet?"
"O.K. to date, Mr. Power. Don't you worry for us. It looks as though the whole place'll bust and go up in a cloud of smoke, don't it?" Mrs. Elliott beamed upon him.
"I'm just round the corner. Call me if you want me." He nodded good-night and the door shut. Back in the sitting-room he put the lamp on the table and took a stand once more by the window.
He gave up all thoughts of bed. The cries of the storm and the lights blazing through the window keyed up his nerves. He became full of fancies of which Molly Gregory was the beginning and the end. He reproached himself for not remaining until the others came back. In the face of this tumult it seemed a brutal thing to have left the child alone. But now the others would be back, and his fancies did no good. Once more repenting the event!