To Cousin Benedict's extreme surprise, not one of the thousands of
termites that ought to occupy the ant-hill showed itself. Was, then,
the cone abandoned?
The hole enlarged, Dick and his companions glided into it. Hercules
disappeared the last, just as the rain fell with such rage that it
seemed to extinguish the lightnings.
But those wind squalls were no longer to be feared. A happy chance had
furnished this little troop with a solid shelter, better than a tent,
better than a native's hut.
It was one of those termite cones that, according to Lieutenant
Cameron's comparison, are more astonishing than the pyramids of Egypt,
raised by the hands of men, because they have been built by such small
insects.
"It is," said he, "as if a nation had built Mount Everest, the highest
mountain of the Himalaya chain."
CHAPTER V.
ANTS AND THEIR DWELLING.
At this moment the storm burst with a violence unknown in temperate
latitudes.
It was providential that Dick Sand and his companions had found this
refuge!
In fact, the rain did not fall in distinct drops, but in streams of
various thickness. Sometimes it was a compact mass forming a sheet of
water, like a cataract, a Niagara. Imagine an aerial basin, containing
a whole sea, being upset. Under such showers the ground was hollowed
out, the plains were changed to lakes, the streams to torrents, the
rivers, overflowing, inundated vast territories.
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