Lucille cast a burning glance of reproof upon him. Then she held up three fingers to Captain Baynell to intimate that three brides awaited him.
"Ha! ha!" laughed Ashley. "Here's a settler for Utah, Judge. That's evidently the place for this fellow 'when this cruel war is over'!"
Judge Roscoe smilingly watched the benignant, commiserating little countenances.
Adelaide had gone around the table and was hanging on the arm of Captain Baynell's chair as she proffered consolation.
"Colonel Ashley wouldn't think it so mighty funny if he had the Old Maid! But don't mind, Captain. Why, I know Cousin Leonora would marry you, if nobody else would,—she always does anything when nobody else wants to."
The silver tones were singularly clear, and for a moment the group sat in appalled silence. Ashley did not laugh, though his face was still distended with the risible muscles. It was like a laughing mask—the form without the fact. He did not dare even to glance toward the chair where Mrs. Gwynn imperturbably perused the war news, nor yet at the stony terror which he felt was petrified on his friend's face. At that moment a vivid white light quivered horribly through the room and the repetitious crashing clamor of the thunder was like a cannonade at close quarters. A great fibrous sound of the riving of timber told that a tree hard by had been split by the bolt; the torrents descended with redoubled force, and the massive old house seemed to rock.
And in the moment of comparative quiet a new, strange sound intruded itself on recognition,—that most uncanny voice, the cry of a horse in the extremity of terror. It came again and again; at each successive peal of the thunder and recurrent furious flare of lightning it seemed nearer. It had a subterranean effect; and then after the crash of falling objects, as if some barrier had been overthrown, the iteration of unmistakable hoof beats on stone flagging announced that there was a horse in the cellar.
This phenomenon obviously indicated an effort to save the animal from the impress of horses for army service, which had been in progress for days and to which Colonel Ashley had alluded. Far away in the wine-cellar, in the safe precincts under the back drawing-room, which was rarely used nowadays, the horse had evidently been ensconced, and but for the storm his presence might have continued indefinitely undetected. The tremendous conflict of the powers of the air, the unfamiliar place, the loneliness, had stricken the creature with panic fright, and, doubtless hearing human voices in the library, he had overthrown temporary obstacles, burst down inadequate doors, and following the genial sound was now stamping and whinnying just beneath the floor. Colonel Ashley, affecting to note nothing unusual, dealt the cards anew, and commented on the fury of the tempest.
"I fancy you have lost one of your fine ancestral oaks, Judge. That bolt struck timber with a vengeance."
"We have the consolation of a prospect of firewood," responded Judge Roscoe. "But I doubt if it struck only one of the trees."