As it approached, heavy clouds drifted up from eastward.

Mali busied herself with laying out a rough bed in the hut for Muriel, and making her a pillow of soft moss and the curious lichen-like material that hangs parasitic from the trees, and is commonly known as "old man's beard." As both Mali and Felix assured her confidently no harm would come to her within so strict a Taboo, Muriel, worn out with fatigue and terror, lay down at last and slept soundly on this native substitute for a bedstead.

She slept without dreaming, while Mali lay at her feet, ready at a moment's call.

It was all so strange; and yet she was too utterly wearied to do otherwise than sleep, in spite of her strange and terrible surroundings.
Felix slept, too, for some hours, but woke with a start in the night.

It was raining heavily.