Having dressed herself swiftly in her lightest garments she threw over her hair a black lace mantilla which she had bought in Oporto, thrust her shoes and stockings into her little bag and crept barefoot to the door. It creaked a little when she closed it behind her; but the steady sequence of sounds which continued to come from the bedroom of Mrs. Baxter proved that the Excellent Creature had heard nothing. Isabel turned away with a shrug of distaste, and descended the stairs. There was no need to listen for the snoring of Jackson, who could have gone on sleeping restfully if she had clattered about the corridor in clogs.
The two bolts of the front door were not very hard to draw back, and the latch was easily lifted. On the top step, where she had talked thrice with Antonio, Isabel drew on her stockings and shoes. Then she closed the door behind her, latched it softly, and stole on tiptoe out of earshot down the path.
It was not much cooler in the open than in her chamber. Still, she was glad that she had exchanged her narrow cell for freedom. Besides, the far-stretching woods and the vast heavens were more in scale with her immeasurable sorrow. She walked on quickly, eager to hasten away from her hateful prison. The path was cheerful because it led down to the open lowlands and the refreshing sea.
Midnight, to Isabel's mind, usually held no more terrors than noonday. But when a vague shape confronted her under a tree she started violently. Some gossip of Joanninha's awoke in her memory—some ridiculous village story about a ghostly monk who haunted the domain on dark nights. Advancing boldly upon it she found that the vague shape was only a dead trunk clothed in creepers. She tried to laugh; but the laugh would not come, and suddenly she knew what was meant by fear.
Her instinct was to turn and run home. But the path behind her, backed by the enormous mass of the mountain, looked like a tunnel bored through coal, while the path ahead of her led towards Antonio and José, towards the soft lights and faint voices of the sea. Daring neither to go back nor to stand still, she hurried on until her foot struck a slab of stone.
She had reached the paved space in front of the abbey. The western gable of the chapel hulked up high into the gloom, like the poop of a man-o'-war aground. Upon the warm stone steps, with her back to the door, she sat down until she had regained all her breath and lost nearly all her fears. Isabel saw no reason why she should not sit there until dawn. She hid her face in her hands, and tried to sleep.
A growling in the east aroused her. It was no louder than the Atlantic's growling in the west. Isabel knew that it was thunder; but it seemed to be so far away that she was not alarmed. What surprised her was its long protraction. Unlike the intermittent din of an English thunderstorm it rumbled on unceasingly, until Isabel could almost have believed that she was listening to the echoes of an Armageddon raging among the burnt, far-off hills of Spain. Suddenly, however, a blaze of lightning showed her the terrified Atlantic's ashen face. She had never dreamed of such lightning before. Flash trod upon flash so eagerly that there was a continuous dance of light. The half-seconds of dimness between seemed more positive than the lightning. They were like the convulsive twitchings of a great eyelid over a terrible eye; and Isabel thought she saw flashes of darkness rather than flashes of light.
From the neighborhood of the stepping-stones came a shattering noise, as sharp as a pistol-shot and as loud as an exploding magazine. Immediately, afterwards, as if obeying a preconcerted signal, a fearful cannonading and fusillading began to rage on every hand. Armageddon had swept westward.
Isabel sprang up and huddled back into the scanty shelter of the shallow doorway. So long as there was no rain she welcomed the gigantic grandeur of the thunder, and the cold, pitiless beauty of the lightning. But the rain's herald did not delay to blow his blast. Isabel could not see them; but she felt a swirl of dust and dead leaves rush past her in obedience to his command. Gritty atoms clung to her lips. At the same moment ten thousand trees began to rock and moan in pain; and a warm drop fell upon Isabel's hand.
Down rushed the rain. At first it struck straight down from heaven, but, after a few seconds, it smote the wood slantwise, like millions of thin javelins hurled from a height. The thunder never ceased crackling, banging, booming; and the lightnings were so bright that the tree-trunks stood like smoke-blackened men wielding brilliant scimitars amidst the flying javelins.