A deep resounding boom echoed across the water, and they all turned to see what could have caused it. In the far distance, almost on the horizon, a plume of smoke sped skywards, lightning flickering around its crown as it reached a few fleecy clouds in the higher atmosphere.
‘What was that?’ they chorused almost together.
No one had an answer, but along with the smoke, streaks of fire were now leaping skywards.
It was Moss who spotted the next event which was to threaten their survival. Speeding across the relative calm waters towards them was a huge tidal wave.
‘If that hits us we are done for!’ Moss cried out in sheer panic, ‘our only hope is to hang onto the vines as tightly as possible, and hope we get washed ashore.’
The eerie silence was broken at last as the speeding wave drew ever closer.
A rustling, rushing noise grew in volume until it became a dull roar, and the wave was upon them. Many times their height, it lifted the wobbly raft high up, so that they could see the land clearly, and then it carried them forward at an ever increasing pace, as the wave reached the shallows and speeded up.
It seemed to take forever, the journey across the shallows, and then they saw the river bank racing towards them.
‘Hold on tight, I think the logs are breaking up.’ Kel needn’t have said anything, their fingers had almost melded with the holding vines, as their white knuckles showed.
There was a sudden upsurge as the wave hit the bank, throwing the raft up into the air, to crash down a few seconds later in a mass of spray.
Several of the logs on the outer edge of the raft had broken away, the holding vines whipping about like living creatures as the stress was relieved.
The power of the wave lessened as it raced inland, lowering the remains of the frail raft and its hapless occupants from its lofty crest almost down to the level of the ground, until it finally spent itself in a mass of frothing water and mud, the raft breaking up into a shattered heap of chewed timber and squirming white worms.
After getting back on their feet as the spent wave retreated, the three looked at each other in sheer disbelief, and then, covered in mud and pulped wood from the remains of the shattered raft, hugged each other in turn, tears of relief running down their faces.
When they had got their breath back, Moss set about trying to rescue the remains of the larger logs, as their staves and spare vine ropes were attached to them.
Kel and Jay unlashed the equipment as Moss dragged the logs in, and before long, as dirty as they were, some sort of jollity had returned to the party.
‘Where do we go from here?’ asked Moss, looking around to find something different to water and the unending grassy plain.
‘I can only suggest we use the Direction Pointer, and follow its indicated course as we have done before.’ Kel answered, ‘I for one would like to wash off this mud, it stinks, so let’s hope we find clean water before too long. I don’t want to go near that river again, anyway, the water will be muddy for some time, after that upheaval.’
They set up the indicator, picked up their possessions and trudged off in the direction it had shown them, three very grubby, hot and tired individuals, but happy to be alive.
Moss remarked that they seemed to be going away from the river, and put it down to the fact that the river had gradually turned away from their intended heading earlier on, and they hadn’t noticed.
The first of a small group of rocks could be seen just ahead of them, and they diverted off their intended course out of sheer curiosity.
As they drew nearer, it was obvious that the group of rocks was much bigger than they had first thought, and were unlike any others they had come across so far. Almost black in colour and sponge-like in texture, they were very hard. Climbing up the pile to get a better view of the surrounding countryside, Moss suddenly called out in surprise.
‘Be careful as you come up, the rocks are very sharp, but you must come and look at this.’
After struggling up to the top of the rock pile, the others joined him and they looked down into a large deep pool of crystal clear water.
‘First, we must make sure something nasty hasn’t made its home here, and then we can fill up our water bags with clean water instead of the dirty looking stuff we got from the river. After that, if it’s still safe, we can wash off this stinking mud from ourselves and the equipment.’
Moss attached the largest fruit they had with them to a long length of vine, and dangled it into the water. As nothing much happened, except that the fruit looked a lot cleaner after its dunking, he tied the vine to the end of his stave and swung it out over the middle of the pool until the fruit was hardly visible as it sank into the depths. Still no reaction of any sort, so Moss deemed it safe to lower one of them to the water level, and fill up their water bags, after first washing them out well.
With as much fresh water stored as the containers would hold, and their own thirst slaked, Moss decided it was time to take a bath, one at a time just in case something unexpected happened.
Kel was the first to be lowered down with the aid of a vine rope, and plunged into the cool clear water. He was quite a good swimmer, and showed off appallingly by diving deep, and then surging up to the surface to rise some distance out of the water before crashing back, causing wavelets to lap around the rim of the pool.
Jay was quite impressed at his
