“Wind blowing hard a very long way up?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Tom.
“What’s the matter?”
“It was so sudden. A cloud has swept right across.”
Uncle Richard stepped up to the opening, and looked out into the night.
“Yes,” he said, “we may shut up for the night; there’s a dense black curtain of clouds drawing across the sky. Come and look. Ah! how brilliant!”
Tom started. He had just taken his eye from the great glass, when the interior of the observatory was lit up for an instant by a flash of lightning, and as soon as his dazzled eyes mastered the intense darkness which followed, he joined his uncle, and looked out of the great shutter opening, to see the singular sight, of one-half of the heavens brilliantly illuminated with the countless orbs, while the Milky Way was clearly defined; the other of an inky blackness, moving steadily, cutting off star after star, till two-thirds of the sky was darkened, and in half-an-hour, when the shutter was drawn over and fastened, not a star was to be seen.
“We are going to have a wild night, Tom, I think,” said Uncle Richard; and as he spoke there was a rumbling noise amongst the woodwork overhead, caused by a passing blast. “There, let’s go in.”
Coffee was waiting when they went in, after leaving all safe, and very welcome, for they were both shivering. Soon after bed was sought, and Tom dropped into a deep sleep, from which he was roused by a rattling at his door, while some one else seemed to be shaking his window. Then there was a rumble like thunder in the chimney, and the beating at the door.