“If it rises much more, we shall be drowned,” he shouted in her ear.
“Let us say our prayers and get ready,” for it seemed to Rachel that the “glory” of which her father spoke so often was nearer to them than ever.
Then she drew him back into the cave and motioned to him to kneel beside her, which he did bashfully enough, and for a while the two children, for they were little more, remained thus with clasped hands and moving lips. Presently the thunder lessened a little so that once more they could hear each other speak.
“What did you pray about?” he asked when they had risen from their knees.
“I prayed that you might escape, and that my mother might not grieve for me too much,” she answered simply. “And you?”
“I? Oh! the same—that you might escape. I did not pray for my mother as she is dead, and I forgot about father.”
“Look, look!” exclaimed Rachel, pointing to the mouth of the cave.
He stared out at the darkness, and there, through the thin flames of the fire, saw two great yellow shapes which appeared to be walking up and down and glaring into the cave.
“Lions,” he gasped, snatching at his gun.
“Don’t shoot,” she cried, “you might make them angry. Perhaps they only want to take refuge like ourselves. The fire will keep them away.”
He nodded, then remembering that the charge and priming of his flint-lock _roer_ must be damp, hurriedly set to work by the help of Rachel to draw it with the screw on the end of his ramrod, and this done, to reload with some powder that he had already placed to dry on a flat stone near the fire. This operation took five minutes or more. When at length it was finished, and the lock reprimed with the dry powder, the two of them, Richard holding the _roer_, crept to the mouth of the cave and looked out again.
The great storm was passing now, and the rain grew thinner, but from time to time the lightning, no longer forked or chain-shaped, flared in wide sheets. By its ghastly illumination they saw a strange sight. There on the island top the two lions marched backwards and forwards as though they were in a cage, making a kind of whimpering noise as they went, and staring round them uneasily. Moreover, these were not alone, for gathered there were various other animals, driven down by the flood from the islands above them, reed and water bucks, and a great eland. Among these the lions walked without making the slightest effort to attack them, nor did the antelopes, which stood sniffing and staring at the torrent, take any notice of the lions, or attempt to escape.