wake came the hissing sound of furious rain.

Ah! the storms had met. From each there burst an awful blaze of dazzling
flame, and now the hill on which we sat rocked at the noise of the
following thunder. The light went out of the sky, darkness fell suddenly
on the land, but not for long. Presently the whole landscape grew vivid
in the flashes, it appeared and disappeared, now everything was visible
for miles, now even the men at my side vanished in the blackness. The
thunder rolled and cracked and pealed like the trump of doom, whirlwinds
tore round, lifting dust and even stones high into the air, and in a
low, continuous undertone rose the hiss of the rushing rain.

I put my hand before my eyes to shield them from the terrible glare,
and looked beneath it towards the lists of iron-stone. As flash followed
flash, from time to time I caught sight of the two wizards. They were
slowly advancing towards one another, each pointing at his foe with the
assegai in his hand. I could see their every movement, and it seemed to
me that the chain lightning was striking the iron-stone all round them.

Suddenly the thunder and lightning ceased for a minute, everything grew
black, and, except for the rain, silent.

"It is over one way or the other, chief," I called out into the
darkness.

"Wait, white man, wait!" answered the chief, in a voice thick with
anxiety and fear.

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when the heavens were lit up
again till they literally seemed to flame. There were the men, not ten