Even _Picici_, the bushmaster, largest and deadliest of all the poisonous snakes heard--and heeded. Not one muscle in all his nine feet of tightly coiled, scale-covered body quivered. Ordinarily, Picici feared not one living thing. In the jungle he was supposed to reign supreme, save only for _Muzurama_, the black snake who could successfully engage him in combat if he chose; but this enemy was so rare as to be almost negligible. The other animals instinctively knew and feared his lightning thrust and death-dealing fangs. But Siluk, the Storm-God was different--an intangible, elusive something he did not understand, could not subdue. And the terror that Siluk brought was even worse, for it stalked boldly in the night and slew without warning or mercy. And so the mighty serpent was contented merely to remain in the damp, evil-smelling burrow under the decaying vegetation to wait and to watch. About the only creatures to remain unaffected by the approach of the storm were the birds in the treetops; to them the thing it heralded meant a superabundance of food and a denser, more protective growth of vegetation. And the stupid _Agoutis_, overgrown guinea-pigs they were, who could never profit by past experiences anyway, either squatted comfortably in their burrows or stole out noiselessly to nibble the tender shoots, as suited their fancy. The hush that fell upon the jungle was appalling. It was the great, breathless silence of fear and apprehension. But the suspense was of short duration. A sighing breeze sifted its way through the whimpering leaves; again the deadly calm; then a dull roar, distant at first, but gaining in volume with each passing heartbeat. With a crash that rent the tallest ceiba from the topmost branches to the buttressed roots, Siluk arrived. The trees bent and groaned before the furious onslaught of the wind that enfiladed their ranks and tore off branches a foot through and hurled them to the ground; a deluge of water beat down upon them from above; and in the glare of the brilliant, blue-green lightning flashes, the startled eyes of trembling wild things saw the weaker and more venerable monarchs of the forest succumb to the unequal struggle and fall with a roar that made itself heard above the drumfire peals of thunder. But, terrible as the Storm-God was in all the majesty of his unleashed fury, it was not he alone that the trembling denizens of the wilderness feared. Rather, it was the thing he portended, the message he brought. For, with this coming of Siluk, began the dismal season of seemingly unending rains when the waters of the lowlands reached their flood stage and drove into the higher, forested country that crafty, merciless terror from which few were safe and which was held in awe and dreaded by even the strongest among them.