There was no longer any blue sky, for the black thunder clouds had covered it from one horizon to the other, and the mountains themselves were hidden. The plain was like the floor of a great dark cave, and in the midst of it were two little children that stumbled forward, staggered, fell, and rose again. But Hate and Love was stronger than their brother Fear, and he staggered to more purpose, and he did not fall so often.
And presently he began to call upon Fear to stop and face him.
It was then that the whole cave was filled with a blue glare that shook and was more bright than the light of the sun. And at the same moment there was a detonation of thunder, more loud and terrible than the falling-in upon themselves of mountains. And the hearts of the men stood still in their breasts.
And long after the darkness had closed in again, their eyes were filled with the shaking blue glare, and their ears with the thunder.
There was a long hush—even the wind ceased. Then again the glare—but more bright, and again the thunder, but more terrible. And glare followed glare, and the thunder became continuous, and the wind came with redoubled fury, and the dust rose in clouds and hid the men, the one from the other.
Then came the rain, but not in drops and jets. Its fall was more like that of a solid, and the whole earth rose in smoke to meet it. The blackness was now like the blackness of night, and a man could no longer see the distance that is between two trees standing in a thick forest.
Sunrise lay upon his face, and sobbed in the storm, for he made sure that his vengeance would escape him. He did not feel the cold rain on his parched body; he no longer feared the lighting and the thunder. Time and again he rose and tried to pierce the blackness of the storm. But the man was hidden.
Now the curtain of the elements that was breaking the heart of one man, was as a mighty stimulant to the feet of the other, and he made a crafty turn and went forward.