I threw on my clothes and went and woke Dick. When I told him my intention he jumped up at once and began to dress, whilst I ran downstairs and found Andy, and set him to get out the car at once.
“Is it goin’ out agin in the shtorm ye are? Begor! ye’d not go widout some rayson, an’ I’m not the bhoy to be behind whin ye want me. I’ll be ready, yer ’an’r, in two skips iv a dead salmon!” and Andy proceeded to make, or rather complete, his toilet, and hurried out to the stable to get the car ready. In the mean time Dick had got two lanterns and a flask, and showed them to me.
“We may as well have them with us. We do not know what we may want in this storm.”
It was now past one o’clock, and the night was pitchy dark. The rain still fell, and high overhead we could hear the ceaseless rushing of the wind. It was a lucky thing that both Andy and the mare knew the road thoroughly, for otherwise we never could have got on that night. As it was, we had to go much more slowly than we had ever gone before.
I was in a perfect fever. Every second’s delay seemed to me like an hour. I feared—nay more, I had a deep conviction—that some dreadful thing was happening, and I had over me a terrible dread that we should arrive too late.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CATASTROPHE.
As we drew closer to the mountain, and recognized our whereabouts by the various landmarks, my dread seemed to grow. The night was now well on, and there were signs of the storm abating; occasionally the wind would fall off a little, and the rain beat with less dreadful violence. In such moments some kind of light would be seen in the sky—or, to speak more correctly, the darkness would be less complete—and then the new squall which followed would seem by contrast with the calm to smite us with renewed violence. In one of these lulls we saw for an instant the mountain rise before us, its bold outline being shown darkly against a sky less black. But the vision was swept away an instant after by a squall and a cloud of blinding rain, leaving only a dreadful memory of some field for grim disaster. Then we went on our way even more hopelessly; for earth and sky, which in that brief instant we had been able to distinguish, were now hidden under one unutterable pall of gloom.
On we went slowly. There was now in the air a thunderous feeling, and we expected each moment to be startled by the lightning’s flash or the roar of Heaven’s artillery. Masses of mist or sea fog now began to be borne landward by the passing squalls. In the time that elapsed between that one momentary glimpse of Knockcalltecrore and our arrival at the foot of the boreen a whole lifetime seemed to me to have elapsed, and in my thoughts and harrowing anxieties I recalled—as drowning men are said to do before death—every moment, every experience since I had first come within sight of the western sea. The blackness of my fears seemed only a carrying inward of the surrounding darkness, which was made more pronounced by the flickering of our lanterns, and more dread by the sounds of the tempest with which it was laden.
When we stopped in the boreen, Dick and I hurried up the hill, whilst Andy, with whom we left one of the lanterns, drew the horse under the comparative shelter of the wind-swept alders, which lined the entrance to the lane. He wanted a short rest before proceeding to Mrs. Kelligan’s, where he was to stop the remainder of the night, so as to be able to come for us in the morning.
As we came near Murdock’s cottage Dick pressed my arm.