Zero the Slaver

bsolutely sustaining the decayed trunks of many a long-dead monarch of the woods, which they had enfolded in their tenacious and eventually fatal embrace; higher still the foliage upon the very summit of the cliffs looked like narrow gleaming threads of green and gold against the dull background of soft sandstone rock. Within the kloof it was unquestionably more or less dark at the best of times, but just now darker than usual, for a vast white cloud, which the pair had noticed in the distance when they entered the pass some hours before, had gradually and ominously settled down, until it seemed to hang like a veritable curtain of rich, fleecy wool directly over the chasm; and as our friends were in the act of discussing the advisability of taking the back track to camp, and returning to complete their investigations on the morrow, this cloud suddenly burst over their very heads, and in one short moment transformed their rocky road into an angry, swelling torrent of leaden-coloured water, alive with branches,