Suddenly the brown veil which concealed the horizon was rent violently asunder, a pale flash of lightning illuminated the heavens.
"Dismount!" Trangoil-Lanec shouted, "dismount, for your lives! Lie down on the ground, and cling to the points of the rocks!"
Everyone followed the advice of the chief. The animals, left to themselves, understood the danger instinctively, folded their legs under them, and laid themselves down also upon the ground.
All at once the thunder burst forth in frightful peals, and the rain fell like a deluge. It is not given to human pen to describe the awful hurricane which vented its fury upon those mountains. Enormous blocks of rock, yielding to the force of the wind and undermined by the waters, were precipitated from the top to the bottom of the ravines with a horrible crash; trees, hundreds of years Old, were twisted and torn up by the roots by the blast.
Suddenly a piercing cry of agony filled the air.
"My daughter!—save my daughter!"
Heedless of the danger to which he exposed himself, Don Tadeo stood upright in the road, his arms extended towards heaven, his hair floating in the wind, and the lightning playing around his brow. Doña Rosario, too weak and too delicate to cling to the sharp points of the rocks by which her fingers were torn had been seized and carried away, and dashed down the precipice by the tempest. The Linda, without pronouncing a word, turned and plunged into the gulf.
"Oh!" the count cried frantically, "I will bring her back or——"
And he sprang forward; but a powerful hand withheld him.
"Stay, brother," said Valentine, in a melancholy but firm tone—"let me encounter this peril."