“Then don’t let us corner him!” said Bravida hastily.
Tartarin called them milksops. But while they were arguing, suddenly, abruptly, they all disappeared from one another’s gaze in a warm thick vapour that smelt of sulphur, through which they sought each other, calling:
“Hey! Tartarin.”
“Are you there, Placide?”
“Ma-a-as-ter!”
“Keep cool! Keep cool!”
A regular panic. Then a gust of wind broke through the mist and whirled it away like a torn veil clinging to the briers, through which a zigzag flash of lightning fell at their feet with a frightful clap of thunder. “My cap!” cried Spiridion, as the tempest bared his head, its hairs erect and crackling with electric sparks. They were in the very heart of the storm, the forge itself of Vulcan. Bravida was the first to fly, at full speed, the rest of the delegation flew behind him, when a cry from the president, who thought of everything, stopped them:
“Thunder!.. beware of the thunder!..”
At any rate, outside of the very real danger of which he warned them, there was no possibility of running on those steep and gullied slopes, now transformed into torrents, into cascades, by the pouring rain. The return was awful, by slow steps under that crazy cliff, amid the sharp, short flashes of lightning followed by explosions, slipping, falling, and forced at times to halt. Pascalon crossed himself and invoked aloud, as at Tarascon: “Sainte Marthe and Sainte Hélène, Sainte Marie-Madeleine,” while Excourbaniès swore: “Coquin de sort!” and Bravida, the rearguard, looked back in trepidation:
“What the devil is that behind us?.. It is galloping... it is whistling... there, it has stopped...”