It was so hot after tea, that even Miss Sophronia made no suggestion of sitting in the house. They all assembled on the verandah, which faced south, so that generally here, if anywhere, a breath of evening coolness might be had. To-night, however, no such breath was to be felt. The thunder-heads had crept up, up, half-way across the sky; their snowy white had changed to blackish blue; and now and again, there opened here or there what looked like a deep cavern, filled with lurid flame; and then would follow a long, rolling murmur, dying away into faint mutterings and losing itself among the treetops.
Miss Sophronia was very uneasy. At one moment she declared she must go into the house, she could not endure this; the next she vowed she would rather see the danger as it came, and she would never desert the others, never.
"Do you think there is danger, my dear young man?" she asked, for perhaps the tenth time.
"Why, no!" said Gerald. "No more than usual, Miss Montfort. These trees, you see, are a great protection. If the lightning strikes one of them, of course it will divert the fluid from the house. If you have no iron about your person—"
But here Miss Sophronia interrupted him. She begged to be excused for a moment, and went into the house. When she returned, her head was enveloped in what looked like a "tidy" of purple wool, while her feet were shuffling along in a pair of blue knitted slippers.
"There!" she said, "I have removed every atom of metal, my dear young man, down to my hairpins, I assure you; and there were nails in my shoes, Margaret. My dear, I advise you to follow my example. So important, I always say, to obey the dictates of science. I shall always consider it a special providence that sent this dear young man to us at this trying time. Go at once, dearest Margaret, I implore you."
But Margaret refused to adopt any such measures of precaution. She was enjoying the slow oncoming of the storm; she had seldom seen anything more beautiful, she thought, and Gerald agreed with her. He was sitting near her, and had taken Merton on his knee, to that young gentleman's manifest discomposure. He wriggled now and then, and muttered some excuse for getting down, but Gerald blandly assured him each time that he was not inconveniencing him in the least, and begged him to make himself comfortable, and entirely at home. Meantime, Margaret had called Basil and Susan D. to her side, and was holding a hand of each, calling upon them from time to time to see the wonderful beauty of the approaching storm. They responded readily enough, and were really interested and impressed. Once or twice, it is true, Basil stole a glance at his sister, and generally found her looking at him in a puzzled, inquiring fashion; then he would shake his head slightly, and give himself up once more to watching the sky.
It was a very extraordinary sky. The clouds, now deep purple, covered it almost from east to west; only low down in the west a band of angry orange still lingered, and added to the sinister beauty of the scene. The red caverns opened deeper and brighter, and now and again a long, zigzag flash of gold stood out for an instant against the black, and following it came crack upon crack of thunder, rolling and rumbling over their heads. But still the air hung close and heavy, still there was no breath of wind, no drop of rain.
Sitting thus, and for the moment silent, there came, in a pause of the thunder, a new sound; a sound that some of them, at least, knew well. Close at hand, rising apparently from the very wall at their side, came the long, eerie wail of the night before. Louder and louder it swelled, till it rang like a shriek in their ears, then suddenly it broke and shuddered itself away, till only the ghost of a sound crept from their ears, and was lost. Margaret and Gerald both sprang to their feet, the girl held the children's hands fast in hers, the lad clutched the boy in his arms till he whimpered and cried; their eyes met, full of inquiry, the same thought flashing from blue eyes and gray. Not the children? What, then? Before Gerald could speak, Miss Sophronia was clinging to him again, shrieking and crying; calling upon him to save her; but this time Gerald put her aside with little ceremony.