“So much the better,” replied the enthusiastic Paganel; “I should like a grand exhibition, since we can’t run away.”
“That’s another of your theories,” said the Major.
“And one of my best, McNabbs. I am of Glenarvan’s opinion, that the storm will be superb. Just a minute ago, when I was trying to sleep, several facts occurred to my memory, that make me hope it will, for we are in the region of great electrical tempests. For instance, I have read somewhere, that in 1793, in this very province of Buenos Ayres, lightning struck thirty-seven times during one single storm. My colleague, M. Martin de Moussy, counted fifty-five minutes of uninterrupted rolling.”
“Watch in hand?” asked the Major.
“Watch in hand. Only one thing makes me uneasy,” added Paganel, “if it is any use to be uneasy, and that is, that the culminating point of this plain, is just this very OMBU where we are. A lightning conductor would be very serviceable to us at present. For it is this tree especially, among all that grow in the Pampas, that the thunder has a particular affection for. Besides, I need not tell you, friend, that learned men tell us never to take refuge under trees during a storm.”
“Most seasonable advice, certainly, in our circumstances,” said the Major.
“I must confess, Paganel,” replied Glenarvan, “that you might have chosen a better time for this reassuring information.”
“Bah!” replied Paganel, “all times are good for getting information. Ha! now it’s beginning.”
Louder peals of thunder interrupted this inopportune conversation, the violence increasing with the noise till the whole atmosphere seemed to vibrate with rapid oscillations.
The incessant flashes of lightning took various forms. Some darted down perpendicularly from the sky five or six times in the same place in succession. Others would have excited the interest of a SAVANT to the highest degree, for though Arago, in his curious statistics, only cites two examples of forked lightning, it was visible here hundreds of times. Some of the flashes branched out in a thousand different directions, making coralliform zigzags, and threw out wonderful jets of arborescent light.