And how fares it with the young folks about whom there is now naturally so much anxiety at Sagasta-weekee? With laughter and song we saw them dash away, as under their skillful strokes their light canoes, like sea birds, glided along over the peaceful waters. Now, drenched and half dazed by the blinding glare of the terrific storm, they are battling for life in a very maelstrom of waters. Suddenly had the storm struck them. They had remarked the strange actions and the frightened cries of the birds, that all seemed hurrying in one direction. Then they had observed the dead calm that had settled down on everything. Even the aspen leaves on the trees, on the islands along which they glided, for once were ominously still. Every wavelet on the waters hushed itself asleep, and the whole surface of the lake was as a sea of polished glass.
Rachel was the first to take alarm from this deadly calm, and she exclaimed:
“This is unnatural, and means danger. Let us return at once.”
Quickly they turned their canoes, and now only a few yards apart they began the race before the coming storm, although as yet it had not revealed itself. The first intimation they had of its approach was the rapidly rising wind, which fortunately arose directly behind them. It was at first different from any ordinary breeze. It seemed to come along like a thing of life, now catching up a handful of water and scattering it like sand, then bounding up in wanton sport, and then once more trailing on the waters and making it ripple in lines or lanes, as in mad sport it now more rapidly hurried along.
Then, as they looked back over their shoulders to the north-west, they saw coming up the cyclonic cloud. It was dark as midnight, ragged at its edges, and above it was a rim of sky so green and so unnatural that our brave young people for a moment almost recoiled with terror at the sight.
“Paddle for that island!” shouted Rachel. “No canoe can live in such a storm as will soon be on us.”
Hardly had she uttered these words ere there shot out a thunderbolt so vivid that they were all nearly blinded by its intense brightness. It seemed to fill the whole heavens around them with its dazzling whiteness, and then as suddenly it was gone.
“One, two, three, four,” began Rachel, who, although paddling with wondrous effectiveness, was calm and collected.
“O, don’t stop to count,” called Winnie, who was like the rest desperately yet cautiously using her paddle. “It would be better to pray than do that.”
“We’ll do that shortly, but paddle for dear life now, and don’t interrupt the count. Where was I? Ten, eleven, twelve—” and at eighteen there came the crash of the thunder of that lightning flash that had so nearly blinded them. It was as though a thousand great cannon had simultaneously been fired.