n building, where had occurred the gambling scene
on the stormy night of the winter before. Since then, the two men had
made friends; fortune had changed, rechanged, and changed again; and
now, almost penniless, he had resolved on a bold stroke, by which to
replenish his purse, and furnish means whereby to indulge his
consuming and all absorbing love of gaming. After entering the street,
he glanced cautiously around, and then advancing to the iron-gray
charger that was tied with a stout bridle to the horse-shoe at the
doorpost, adjusted the accoutrements, leaped to the saddle, and rode
hurriedly along the road leading to the old homestead.

Meantime the aspect of the heavens had materially changed. The black,
opaque mass of vapors had extended its dark and jagged front a third
of the way around the horizon, piling its frowning steeps high up
toward the zenith. Here and there overhead, the sky was blotted with
isolated black clouds, which were fast increasing in size and joining
into one. The thunder, which had been occasionally muttering on high,
now rattled incessantly, and the forked lightning rushed down in
sheets of lurid flame. Ere long, the huge mass of sweeping clouds had
reached the zenith, and were rolling darkly onward toward the opposite
horizon. Directly the wild uproar died nearly altogether away, and
intense darkness shrouded the skies and earth in its folds. The air
grew heavy, and seemed to be forcibly pressed toward the ground. This
was that strange pause in the strife of the elements, apparently as if
the combatants were gathering all their strength for the fearful
contest that was to follow. But this pause was only momentary, and
soon was at an end. Then a distant, sullen, bellowing murmur came
surging up from the depths of the forest, followed by the sorrowful
moaning of the trees along the road-side. David White grew pale, and
could almost hear the beating of his own heart as he bent forward in
the saddle, and listened to the approaching rush and roar of the
lashed winds. He had not expected such a wild fierceness in the storm,
but now he had gone too far to recede; he was in the very midst of the
forest, and the danger was the same either way, so he spurred on the
plunging animal beneath him with a desperate energy. At that instant a
blinding flash shot down from a cloud almost directly overhead, drank
up the thick darkness, and wrapped the air in sheets of lurid flame,
while the tall trees stood o