It would even have
been unbearable, if thick storm clouds had not interposed between the
burning rays and the ground. Distant lightnings began to rend the sky
and low rollings of thunder grumbled in the depths of the heavens. A
formidable storm was going to burst forth.
Now, these cataclysms are terrible in Africa: rain in torrents,
squalls of wind which the strongest trees cannot resist, clap after
clap of thunder, such is the contest of the elements in that latitude.
Dick Sand knew it well, and he became very uneasy. They could not pass
the night without shelter. The plain was likely to be inundated, and
it did not present a single elevation on which it was possible to seek
refuge.
But refuge, where would they seek it in this low desert, without a
tree, without a bush? The bowels of the earth even would not give it.
Two feet below the surface they would find water.
However, toward the north a series of low hills seemed to limit the
marshy plain. It was as the border of this depression of land. A few
trees were profiled there on a more distant, clearer belt, left by the
clouds on the line of the horizon.
There, if shelter were still lacking, the little band would at least
no longer risk being caught in a possible inundation. There perhaps
was salvation for all.
"Forward, my friends, forward!" repeated Dick Sand.
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