Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/27

Rh a sudden flash of pale blue light, low down upon the northern horizon, which made my heart leap with joy. I had already seen one in broad daylight, while on the pinnacle of the castle, in my mind's eye. Now it was a reality. There was actual lightning approaching, and there was thunder in the air, but as yet it had not made itself heard. I watched for at least an hour the successive faint flashes, which gradually increased their wild play through the wilderness, and then I went to my couch in the happy belief that the long-expected and thrice-blessed rain was coming.

At midnight exactly I was awakened by a tremendous crash of thunder rolling along the very ridge-pole of the roof. Springing from my bed, and throwing on an overcoat, I went out into the open air. The sky, to my great surprise, was still without a cloud, and not a breath of wind stirred the leaves of the trees; but the lightning flashed incessantly in blinding columns of flame, lighting up the gloomiest recesses of the immense forest, and sweeping with strange, ghostly, phosphorescent glow over the calm waters of the adjacent lake. The thunder still pealed out, crash after crash; but where did it all come from? Why all this terrible clamour, and weird illumination of the vasty deep, if we were to get no rain? Unable to solve the mystery, I turned in to my bed again.

Two hours after I was again awakened. A loud trumpeting and drumming deluge was falling on the roof. Never was music more sweet, or eloquence of stunning senator more delicious; but alas! it ceased almost as soon as it began, and subsided into light and intermittent showers, which continued until daybreak. Then the convulsion ceased altogether, and we were left once more to our silent slumbers.

After breakfast I strolled down to the lake, as I was in