"Yes," answered I, demurely, "mother sent me?"
What he would have answered to that I don't know; for at that moment the sky seemed suddenly to open and to be the mouth of a flaming furnace full of fire, far into the depths of the heavens; it was the hour that should have been twilight, but it was dark, save when that great sheet of blue light wrapped the marsh in splendor; then the brown and white cattle huddled in groups on the pastures, the heavy gray citadel on the plain, the wide stretch of sea that, save for the white plumes of its waves, was ink beyond the brown of its shallows, the wide stretch of monotonous level land, the rising hill, with the old city gate close before is—all was suddenly revealed in one vivid panorama and faded again into mystery. The thunder followed close upon the lightning—a deafening crash overhead.
"By Jove!" said Harrod. "That's close. I hope you're not frightened of a storm."
"Frightened!" repeated I, scornfully.
"Some girls are," said he, half apologetically, looking at me with admiration.
"Not I, though," I laughed.
But as I spoke my heart stood still. We had climbed the hill and had reached a spot where the trees overshadowed the road, nearly meeting overhead; a fiery fork crossed the white path in front of us, there was a kind of crackle in the wood, and a blue flame seemed to dart out of the branch of an elm close at hand.
"Great God!" ejaculated Trayton Harrod under his breath, and he flung his arm around me and dragged me to the other side of the path.
I had said an instant before that I was not frightened, and I had spoken the truth; but if I had said now that I was not frightened it would have been because the sweet sense of protecting strength, which this danger had called forth, had brought with it a happiness stronger than fear.
"Can you run?" said he. "We must get away from these trees."