Page:"The Mummy" Volume 2.djvu/211

Rh played like writhing serpents along the deep black sky; now streaming like floating ribands in the air, and then darting downwards like fiery arrows. Thunder rolled heavily in the distance, approaching however nearer and nearer, every peal reverberating through the sky, as though echoed back by unseen rocks, till at last a tremendous crash announced the fall of the electric fluid. Our travellers were preparing to retire below, when, just as they reached the cabin stairs, the heavens seemed to open, and a ball of light-blue fire, of a most vivid brightness, shot downwards from the chasm, and struck the mast of the labouring ship. Immediately after, a loud crackling noise rattled over their heads, and then all again was still, save the howling winds, and the groans of some prostrate seamen, wounded by the scattered fragments of the splintered mast.

The rain now descended in torrents, and the feeble vessel, at one moment raised to a fearful height, then dashed down, and apparently engulphed by the heavy seas that washed over her, seemed every instant doomed to