ng in vain to see a hawk pursuing it. The distant moan of
a cow came from the fields. Not another sound, it seemed, was in the
world.

In an instant the south-west was black. A strange, remote murmur smote the
colonel's ear. Overhead he could see but a strip of hot, hazy sky. Had he
seen the whole heavens, he could have done nothing but go on. Quickly the
murmur became an awful muttering, then a deafening roar. The clatter, the
rush, the crash of a tornado were behind him. The groans of the very earth
were about him. The darkness of twilight was upon him. Alice and Death
were before him. A cloudy demon, towering high as the heavens, in whose
path nothing could live, was striding near and nearer.

Farm-houses were overthrown. Trees were twisted off from their roots and
torn to pieces. Wild animals and birds were dashed to death. Streams were
emptied of their waters. Human beings and horses and cattle were lifted
into the air, hurled hither and thither and thrown dead upon the earth.

The whirlwind was following the line of the road! Colonel Miller had no
opportunity to see this, nor could he ride aside from that line if he
chose. He could but cry aloud, "My darling! O God! Alice!" and lash his
horse forward. The high, close forest would keep the wind from lifting his
horse from the ground or himself from the saddle. But the great trees
crashed like thunder behind him. Their fragments whirled above him. Their
branches fell before him. The limb of a huge oak grazed his face, crushed
his horse, and both rolled to the ground, blinded with dust, imprisoned
within a barricade of splintered trunks and shattered tree-tops.

The marquis, from his high lookout, saw, before any one else, the
approaching tornado, and, descending like a flash, he yet noted its
direction. As Alice reached the foot of his tree he was on the ground, had
seized the pony's mane, was half seated and half clinging in front of her,
had snatched the reins from her hand, and was urging the frightened animal
to its utmost speed. Overcome with terror and confusion, Alice clung
instinctively to the saddle and to him, without hearing his hurried advice
to "stick like a old burdock."

They shot like an arrow up the road. The noise of the tempest was audible.
Closer it was coming, crushing, rending, annihilating all before it. The
way grew darker. The terrified pony scarce touched the ground. His only
will was to go forward, and he still obeyed a firm use of the