that it must be great, else why
the haste, why so much anxiety? Whipping out his sword he fell to
beside him, and together, with Meinheer following them, his coat over
his shoulder, and his handkerchief mopping the perspiration from his
face, they fought their way through the jungle till they had reached the
spot which Dick had pointed out. And here Mr Pepson threw himself
exhausted on the ground, gasping with his exertions, while Dick was glad
to sit down. As for Johnnie, he crouched at the foot of a giant cotton
tree and cowered there. Dick could see the whites of his eyes, and
noticed that he trembled.

"Get in here," suddenly shouted Mr Pepson. "The very place! It may
shelter us."

He sprang to his feet, and forcing his way through some feet of the
tangle, came to a tree of somewhat smaller dimensions as to height, but
of enormous girth.

Like all the cotton trees in the forest at that point, the roots of this
leviathan barely did more than penetrate the surface of the ground, for
it was there that all the moisture lay. Below was a hard stratum which
offered opposition, and as a result the roots had spread themselves out
over a wide area, while they had risen into the air till there was an
archway of large dimensions beneath the tree. Dick had seen the same
before, and it had attracted his attention. At Mr Pepson's shout he
tore after him, and presently all four were stretched under the arch.
Nor were they a minute too soon, for if there had been a roar before,
the noise now was deafening and positively awe-inspiring. The gusts
which had up to this caught the tops of the trees seemed now to be
concentrated into one enormous blast. The very forest shivered and
trembled. The treetops bent and the trunks groaned. Then the storm
burst. A sheet of lightning lit up the sky and even penetrated to the
forest depths. The roar became even greater, till the volume of sound
was positively deafening. And how the trees bent! The one beneath
which the party lay trembled and swayed. As Dick's hand rested on one
of the giant roots he could feel it moving under the strain, and
wondered whether the huge mass would topple.

Crash! There was a sharp sound as if a cannon of small calibre had been
fired, and a mighty tree a few yards away, fractured some feet from its
base, came with a thud to the ground. Meinheer hid his face in his
hands and groaned, while Johnnie rolled on the ground in terror.

"That was what