Now, all this time the storm had been a dry storm, that is to say, not a drop of rain had fallen from the bosom of the scowling clouds that seemed bursting with it, but it was bound to come, sooner or later, and come it did, with a vengeance, when our friends had been under way about an hour, and just as the canoe had shot into a broad, lagoon-like stretch of the river where it broadened out to about a mile in width, and where consequently the water was shallow and the current scarcely perceptible. And well was it for them that the rain caught them just at that point, for otherwise they must perforce have landed until the worst of it had blown over. For it came down, not in the sober, steady, respectable fashion in which it falls in temperate climates, but literally in sheets, through which it was not possible to see anything more distant than an ordinary boat's length. With it came more wind, so that the canoe, with the gale right behind her and a close-reefed sail set which, in that condition, was not very much bigger than a man's shirt, rushed along with the foam boiling up level with her gunwale, and sometimes even in over it. While this state of affairs prevailed, and nothing could be seen beyond the dripping sail glistening in the flash of the lightning, the Englishmen continued their headlong flight up the river, unable to see where they were steering but keeping the boat steadily dead before the wind, confident, from the glimpse they had had just before the rain came on, that so long as they were able to do this they would be running up the centre line of the river and could not come to very much harm. The first violence of the rain lasted about twenty minutes, and then it settled to a quiet, steady downpour for about an hour, during which the thunder and lightning gradually subsided until the thunder became a mere muttering in the extreme distance, and finally died away altogether. But the sheet lightning continued to play intermittently, low down on the northern horizon for some time longer, affording light enough for the fugitives to see where they were going, and as the wind still continued to blow strongly they held on, hour after hour, making the most of the splendid opportunity thus afforded them to make good their escape, so that when at length the morning came and the wind died down with the rising of the sun, they were far beyond the reach of pursuit by the Mayubuna.