Once through the water, all were in
safety, for the meadow sloped steeply upward. An increasing play of
lightning made the torches useless, and they were dropped, while the party
pressed close beneath an overhanging hedge which ran along the upper
boundary of the meadow. From this vantage-ground they beheld a spectacle
unexampled in the memory of any among them.
Screaming like some incarnate and mad manifestation of all the elements
massed in one, the hurricane launched itself upon that valley. As a wall
the wind heralded the water, while forked lightnings, flaming above both,
tore the black darkness into jagged rags and lighted a chaos of yellow
foaming torrent which battled with livid front straight down the heart of
the coomb. The swollen river was lost in the torrent of it; and the hiss of
the rain was drowned by its sound.
So Nature's full, hollowed hand ran over lightning-lighted to the organ
music of the thunder; but for these horror-stricken watchers the majestic
phenomena sweeping before them held no splendor and prompted no admiration.
They only saw ruin tearing at the roots of the land; they only imagined
drowned beasts floating before them belly upward, scattered hay hurried to
the sea, wasted crops, a million tons of precious soil torn off the fields,
orchards desolated, bridges and roads destroyed. For them misery stared out
of the lightning and starvation rode upon the flood.
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