been put in shelter. We waited silently, puffing away our pipes.

The roaring increased in volume. Beneath it we began to hear the long,
rolling crash of thunder. Overhead the stars, already dimmed, were
suddenly blotted from existence. Then came the rain, in a literal
deluge, as though the god of floods had turned over an entire reservoir
with one twist of his mighty hand. Our fire went out instantly; the
whole world went out with it. We lay on our canvas cots unable to see a
foot beyond our tent opening; unable to hear anything but the insistent,
terrible drumming over our heads; unable to think of anything through
the tumult of waters. As a man's body might struggle from behind a
waterfall through the torrents, so our imaginations, half drowned,
managed dimly to picture forth little bits--the men huddled close in
their tiny tents, their cowled blankets over their heads. All the rest
of the universe had gone.

After a time the insistent beat and rush of waters began to wear through
our patience. We willed that this wracking tumult should cease; we
willed it with all the force that was in us. Then, as this proved vain,
we too humped our spiritual backs, cowled our souls with patience, and
waited dumbly for the force of the storm to spend itself. Our faculties
were quite as effectually drowned out by the unceasing roar and crash of
the waters as our bodily comfort would have been had we lacked the
protection of our tent.

Abruptly the storm passed. It did not die away slowly in the diminuendo
of ordinary storms. It ceased as though the reservoir had been tipped
back again. The rapid _drip_, _drip_, _drip_ of waters now made the
whole of sound; all the rest of the world lay breathless. Then, inside
our tent, a cricket struck up bravely.