silver rain, but the silence
now was painful, and Rob strained his ears to catch the peculiar
modulation of one of the cricket-like insects which were generally so
common around. But not one made a sound, and at last, as if troubled by
the silence, the boy cried half jeeringly, "All this trouble for
nothing! I say, Joe, where's the storm?"

"Here!" was the reply in a whisper, as all at once out of the clear sky
great drops of rain came pattering down, then great splashes; and
directly after, with a hissing rush, there were sheets of rushing water
streaming through the branches and splashing upon the tarpaulin
coverings of the boat.

"I say, I never saw it rain like this before," cried Rob as he sheltered
himself beneath the tarpaulin and canvas. "Will it thunder--"

He was going to say, "too," but the word remained unspoken, and he
shrank back appalled by a blinding flash of vivid blue lightning, which
seemed to dash through beneath their shelter and make every face look of
a ghastly bluish-grey.

Almost simultaneously there was a deafening peal of thunder, and, as if
by an instantaneous change--probably by some icy current of air on
high--the moisture-laden atmosphere was darkened by dense mists whirling
and looking like foam, clouds of slaty black shut out the sun, and the
rain came down in a perfect deluge, streaming through the tree and
pouring into the lake with one incessant roaring splash.

One moment beneath the awning it was black as night, the next it was all
one dazzling glare, while in peal after peal the mighty thunder came,
one clap succeeding another before it had had time to die away in its
long metallic reverberations, that sounded as if the thunder rolled away
through some vast iron tunnel.

No one attempted to speak, but all crowded together listening
awe-stricken to the deafening elemental war, one thought dominating
others in their minds, and it was this: "Suppose one of these terrible
flashes of lightning strikes the tree!"

Reason and experience said, "Why shelter beneath a tree at a time like
this?" but the instinct of self-preservation drove them there to escape
the terrible battering of the rain and the rushing wind.

For they had ample knowledge of the state of the lake, though, save in
momentary glances, it was invisible beneath the black pall of cloud and
rain, for waves came surging in, making the boat rise and fall, while
from time to time quite a billow rushed beneath the droo