All at once a violent, rapid, incisive flash of lightning
pierced the gloom, and the rent it made had not closed
ere a frightful clap of thunder shook the celestial depths.
"Up! up! turn out!" shouted Ferguson.
The two sleepers, aroused by the terrible concussion,
were at the doctor's orders in a moment.
"Shall we descend?" said Kennedy.
"No! the balloon could not stand it. Let us go up
before those clouds dissolve in water, and the wind is let
loose!" and, so saying, the doctor actively stirred up the
flame of the cylinder, and turned it on the spirals of the
serpentine siphon.
The tempests of the tropics develop with a rapidity
equalled only by their violence. A second flash of lightning
rent the darkness, and was followed by a score of
others in quick succession. The sky was crossed and dotted,
like the zebra's hide, with electric sparks, which danced
and flickered beneath the great drops of rain.
"We have delayed too long," exclaimed the doctor;
"we must now pass through a zone of fire, with our
balloon filled as it is with inflammable gas!"
"But let us descend, then! let us descend!" urged Kennedy.
"The risk of being struck would be just about even,
and we should soon be torn to pieces by the branches of
the trees!"
"We are going up, doctor!"
"Quicker, quicker still!"
In this part of Africa, during the equatorial storms, it
is not rare to count from thirty to thirty-five flashes of
lightning per minute.
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