nt, the swift
oncoming of a thunder-cloud had not been observed by any but Andrew, and
it had already climbed half-way to the zenith, blotting out a third of
the firmament. This inverted thunder-bolt produced a startling effect
upon the over-strained nerves of the crowd. Some cried out with terror,
some sobbed with hysterical agony, some shouted in triumph, and it was
generally believed that Virginia Waters, who died a maniac many years
afterward, lost her reason at that moment. Bill Day ceased his mocking,
and shook till his teeth chattered. And none of his party dared laugh at
him. The moon had now gone, and the vivid lightning followed the
thunder, and yet louder and more fearful thunder succeeded the
lightning. The people ran about as if demented, and Julia was left
alone. August had only one thought in all this confusion, and that was
to find Julia. Having found her, they clasped hands, and stood upon the
brow of the hill calmly watching the coming tempest, believing it to be
the coming of the end. Between the claps of thunder they could hear the
broken sentences of Elder Hankins, saying something about the lightning
that shineth from one part of heaven to the other, and about the
promised coming in the clouds. But they did not much heed the words.
They were looking the blinding lightning in the face, and in their
courageous trust they thought themselves ready to look into the flaming
countenance of the Almighty, if they should be called before Him. Every
fresh burst of thunder seemed to August to be the rocking of the world,
trembling in the throes of dissolution. But the world might crumble or
melt; there is something more enduring than the world. August felt the
everlastingness of love; as many another man in a supreme crisis
has felt it.

But the swift cloud had already covered half the sky, and the bursts of
thunder followed one another now in quicker succession. And as suddenly
as the thunder had come, came the wind. A solitary old sycamore, leaning
over the water on the Kentucky shore, a mile away, was first to fall. In
the lurid darkness, August and Julia saw it meet its fate. Then the rail
fences on the nearer bank were scattered like kindling-wood, and some of
the sturdy old apple-trees of the orchard in the river-bottom were
uprooted, while others were stripped of their boughs. Julia clung to
August and said something, but he could only see her lips move; her
voice was drowned by the incessant roar of th