The boys were suddenly roused from sound sleep about three o"clock next morning by some one in the room shouting at them : "Hi, there ! Hi ! Get up, it"s coming. Get up quick. "The next instant the bed-clothes were jerked back and a man was pulling them roughly to their feet. It was all so sudden and unexpected that each boy thought that he was dreaming; but, as the man shook and punched them into activity, they became aware of a terrifying noise coming at them across the desert through the black darkness of the night. The air vibrated with a tremendous booming which affected their ears like the deep notes of a huge organ, and the loudest shout was only just heard.
"It"s me. It"s Peter, " said a voice at their side. "Come for your lives. The tornado"s right on top of us. "He caught each boy firmly by the wrist and dragged them, dressed only in pyjamas just as they had tumbled out of bed, out of the room, down the corridor, and out at the back of the hotel. Everything was in confusion. They bumped into people and upset chairs and things in their mad rush. Now and again Peter"s voice rose above the din, shouting, "The tank ! The tank! " but nobody paid any attention, even if they heard thevoice of the man above that other and more dreadful voice which was coming nearer and nearer and striking terror into the hearts even of the brave dwellers in the desert.
The shock of the night air did more than anything else fully to arouse the boys. It was like a dash of cold water, and though Peter still kept a tight grip of them, they ran along level with him of their own accord. Out into the yard they dashed, round one or two corners, over a fence at the back of an outhouse, and, suddenly, the man stopped dead and began pulling at something on the ground. It was a grating with a big iron handle. It stuck. The approaching tornado roared with anger while the man put forth all his great strength. The booming sound rose to a shriek of triumph, as if the storm actually saw that these escaping human beings were delivered into its power. But Peter"s muscles were like steel and leather. He strained till the veins stood out on his forehead like rope. At last the thing loosened and came up, and the bushman sprawled on his back. But he was on his feet again instantly. Speech would have been no good, so he gripped Vaughan by the collar of his pyjamas and swung him into the hole in the ground and waited only long enough for the boy to find a foothold before he did the same with Stobart. Then he scrambled down himself. They were in a big cement rain-water tank built in the ground at the back of the hotel. There was no water in it.
Nobody spoke. Nobody could speak. The air was so packed full of sound that it seemed as if it could not possibly hold onesound more. It was like the booming of a thousand great guns at the same time; the shock, the recoil, and the rush of air across the entrance to the tank was as if artillery practice on an immense scale were going on. There was a screaming sound as if shells were hurtling through space. Now the pitch blackness of the night was a solid mass; then it was red and livid like a recent bruise; and then again, with a crackle like a discharge of a Maxim, vivid flashes of white fire split the air. Thunder rolled continuously and lightning played without stopping, in a way which is seen and heard only on a battle-field or during a tornado in the desert. It sounded as if the pent-up fury of a thousand years had suddenly been let loose upon that little collection of houses on the vast barren plain.
Down in the tank it was as dark as a tomb. The boys were close to one another, crouched against the wall, unable to move through sheer amazement. Peter stood up and looked out through the entrance, expecting every moment to hear the sound of houses being torn up from their foundations and flung down again many yards distant, mere heaps of splintered wood and twisted iron, with perhaps mangled human corpses in the wreckage. But such a sound did not come.
The tornado lasted about three minutes-that was all-and then it passed, and all those tremendous sounds became muffled in the distance as it retreated.
From Conrad Sayce"s In the Musgrave Ranges
Author.-Conrad Harvey Sayce, a Melbourne architect born in Eng-land, has written several books dealing with Central Australia-Golden Buckles, In the Musgrave Ranges, The Golden Valley, The Valley of a Thousand Deaths, and The Splendid Savage. All but the first are adventure books for boys.
General.-Where did this happen? Consult a map. What characters are mentioned? A tornado is a storm that turns in a circle. What other names are given to these circular storms? What causes them? Describe the fiercest storm you have known.