"Ooh! Ooh!"

They dashed their hands before their eyes and stood still: a golden snake
twisted round a tree and all the wood was bright with fire and there came
a droning and a rumbling and a banging as of stones together and a
hundred thousand branches burst asunder. Shivering, not daring to look
up, they crossed themselves again and all three crept under the branches,
deep down in a ditch. Trientje tied her pinafore over the little one's
face and they sat there huddled together, shuddering and peeping through
their fingers and saying loud Our Fathers.

"You must not look, Lowietje: the lightning would strike you blind."

The trees wrung their heavy boughs and everything squeaked and rustled
terribly. The water rained and poured from the leafy vault on Trientje's
straw hat, on Lowietje's bare head and right through his little torn
shirt. And clap and clap of thunder fell; the sky opened and belched fire
like a hot oven. The children sat nestling into each other's
arms--Poentje down under the other two--and only when it had kept still
for long did they all, trembling and terrified, dare to put out their
heads.

"I wish we were home now!" sighed Lowietje.

Once more the sky was all on fire and rumbling and breaking and crackling
till the earth quaked and shook.

"O God, O God, help us get out of the wood and home to mother!" whined
Trientje.