ranges. This thick darkness inclines me to think so--especially after
the new activity of volcanic action we have seen so recently at
Krakatoa. Let me try your matches, Nigel, perhaps they have
escaped--mine are useless."

But Nigel's matches were as wet as those of the hermit. So were those of
the professor. Luckily Moses carried the old-fashioned flint and steel,
with which, and a small piece of tinder, a spark was at last kindled,
but as they were about to apply it to a handful of dry bamboo scrapings,
an extra spirt of rain extinguished it. For an hour and more they made
ineffectual attempts to strike a light. Even the cessation of the rain
was of no avail.

"Vat must ve do _now_?" asked the professor in tones that suggested a
wo-begone countenance, though there was no light by which to distinguish
it.

"Grin and bear it," said Nigel, in a voice suggestive of a slight
expansion of the mouth--though no one could see it.

"Dere's nuffin' else left to do," said Moses, in a tone which betrayed
such a very wide expansion that Nigel laughed outright.

"Hah! you may laugh, my yoong frond, hot if zee tigers find us out or
zee elephants trample on us, your laughter vill be turned to veeping.
Vat is zat? Is not zat vonderful?"

The question and exclamation were prompted by the sudden appearance of
faint mysterious lights among the bushes. That the professor viewed them
as unfriendly lights was clear from the click of his rifle-locks which
followed.

"It is only phosphoric light," explained Van der Kemp. "I have often
seen it thus in electric states of the atmosphere. It will probably
increase--meanwhile we must seat ourselves on our boxes and do the best
we can till daylight. Are you there, boys?"

This question, addressed to the bearers in their native tongue, was not
answered, and it was found, on a _feeling_ examination, that, in spite
of leeches, tigers, elephants, and the whole animal creation, the
exhausted porters had flung themselves on the wet ground and gone to
sleep while their leaders were discussing the situation.

Dismal though the condition of the party was, the appearances in the
forest soon changed the professor's woe into eager delight, for the
phosphorescence became more and more pronounced, until every tree-stem
blinked with a palish green light, and it trickled like moonlight over
the ground, bringing out thick dumpy mushrooms like domes of light.
Glowing caterpillars and centipedes crawled a