I had fallen on one knee, but I got up and looked around. Ellen was leaning on Fabian. Harry Drake seemed petrified, and remained in the same position, but his face had grown black.
Had the unhappy man been struck when attracting the lightning with his blade?
Ellen left Fabian, and went up to Drake with her face full of holy compassion. She placed her hand on his shoulder; even this light touch was enough to disturb the equilibrium, and Drake fell to the ground a corpse.
Ellen bent over the body, whilst we drew back terrified. The wretched Harry Drake was dead.
“Struck by lightning,” said Dean Pitferge, catching hold of my arm. “Struck by lightning! Ah! will you not now believe in the intervention of thunder?”
Had Harry Drake indeed been struck by lightning as Dean Pitferge affirmed, or rather, as the doctor on board said, had a blood-vessel broken in his chest? I can only say there was nothing now but a corpse before our eyes.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The next day, Tuesday, the 9th of April, the “Great Eastern” weighed anchor, and set sail to enter the Hudson, the pilot guiding her with an unerring eye. The storm had spent itself in the night, and the last black clouds disappeared below the horizon. The aspect of the sea was enlivened by a flotilla of schooners, waiting along the coast for the breeze.
A small steamer came alongside, and we were boarded by the officer of the New York sanitary commissioners.
It was not long before we passed the light-boat which marks the channels of the Hudson, and ranged near Sandy Hook Point, where a group of spectators greeted us with a volley of hurrahs.