The boys lay on the dried moss and talked without attempting to work; and after they had eaten their dinner, for which neither felt any great appetite, they must have dozed off to sleep, for they were brought to a consciousness of their surroundings by the uneasy whining of Moor about his little master; and when they hastily sat up, they found that a change had come over the look of things.
Away in the east opposite them the sky was still blue and cloudless, and the snow glittered and shone as brightly as ever; but behind them had come up a great mass of purple-black clouds, edged with an angry livid red, and the air felt not only hot, but full of sulphur.
Seppi started to his feet with a little cry of alarm.
“The storm! the storm!” he cried. “Little Herr, we must run for shelter. Come with me! come to my home. You will never get to yours. And you must not go through the woods. The storm has come, and it will be a dreadful one. Oh, why did I go to sleep?”
Seppi was already summoning his goats by the familiar calls they knew so well, and Squib had his arm about him to help him down the hill.
“Run on without me!” cried Seppi, “I am so slow. You can’t miss the way—straight down the path and across the plank bridge, and there is the chalet just ahead of you.”
But Squib only held him tighter by the arm.
“We will go together. I will help you,” he said. “Czar will take care of the goats, and they know their way home. Come along,” and as Moor came up to his little master to help him, the party was soon on its way down the side of the valley, Seppi finding the help of Squib’s arm much better than that of his crutch.
Crash—bang—roar!
What an awful noise it was! and coming so close upon that blinding flash of lightning that Squib, who had learned something of the nature of thunder-storms, knew it must be dangerously near. Seppi knew it by experience, and gripped his comrade tighter by the arm. The air about them grew suddenly dark and stifling, the valley seemed filled with booming voices calling and shouting back to one another. Squib would have stopped to listen had not Seppi hurried him on.