He replaced the Turkish pipe and the music box in their respective places and put the other articles in the cave in order. Then he procured more rugs and arranging them over the sleepers, tucked them in carefully.
“Au revoir, my friends, until we meet again,” he murmured and, with a sweeping bow to the sleeping forms, he made his exit.
Once outside, he carefully replaced the quantity of brush which effectually concealed the entrance to the cave. As he did so, there was a heavy, rumbling noise in the distance, and he glanced at the sky.
“I must get me home at high speed!” he muttered to himself as he noted the darkening heavens. “There is a storm which is coming.”
He accordingly retraced his steps at his best speed. He had proceeded but little more than half the distance, however, when the storm broke in all its fury: vivid flashes of forked lightning alternating with terrific clashes of thunder. Still he pressed on, not knowing how long the storm might last and bent upon reaching home.
At last, however, this Summer storm reached such a pitch of violence that he found himself compelled to seek shelter until its full fury had in some degree been spent. Not a habitation in sight! Some distance down the road, however, was a great oak, whose wide-spreading branches would afford at least a temporary haven. Hastening his steps, he reached the tree.
At that very instant, the whole heavens were illumined with a tremendous blaze of light. A great zigzag tongue of forked lightning shot forth and darted down upon the oak, rending its massive trunk asunder in one awful stroke.
And at the foot of the shattered tree, as the thunder crashed forth, lay a blackened and blighted shape, horrible to behold—the body of Dr. Raoul Jaquet.