midnight
Now , the coming of night in the Upper Amazon is in itself an awe-inspiring event ; but coupled with the furious onslaught of _ Siluk _ , the Storm-God , it is terrible . In the tropics there is not the lengthy twilight of a temperate clime ; nor the fearsome splendor of the Aurora Borealis with its million streamers of ghastly light shooting into the heavens in a fan-shaped flare of quivering color to lend mystery and enchantment to the long months of the frigid , scintillating polar night . One moment , the sun like a brassy ball of fire hangs low upon the threatening horizon ; the next , it has dropped into the belt of grayish mist that marks the earth 's end and darkness has spread its silent , ominous mantle over the forest . Almost , as a room is plunged into blackness upon the snuffing out of a candle at midnight , so the jungle is flooded with gloom at the snap of the solar switch . _ Uru _ , the great howling monkey , eyed with suspicion the bank of angry clouds descending from the slopes of the dark mountain masses to the west . Then he turned to his party , five in number , and from his throat there emanated a few gruff barks followed by a long-drawn , rumbling roar . The females hugged close the branches , gave one furtive look at the threatening sky , and joined their voices in the deafening chorus that shook the wide-spreading canopy of the tall ceiba tree and penetrated into the innermost recesses of the jungle a distance measured in miles .