"He has murdered her," he thought; and getting a momentary chance, he fired, but without effect; Ben climbed a tree, springing from branch to branch like a squirrel, until he reached the top, and like a squirrel, chattering nonsense to himself. "If I had another shot I would put an end to his miserable existence," muttered Philip, turning away to trace, if possible, the track of the man, and find where he had dropped Alice.
Soon he came out upon a small, open, elevated space—the river was upon one side, the woods all around. Something strange was in the air—nature seemed to be listening—not a breath rippled the water or made a leaf quiver—he felt hot and suffocated. Despite of all his mental misery, he, too, paused and listened like the elements—his ear caught a far-away murmur. The day had been very warm for that season of the year; it grew, now, oppressive. A low bank of dark clouds lay along the south and west, hanging over the prairie on the opposite side of the stream—it was such a bank of clouds as would seem to threaten rain before midnight; but even while he gazed, a great black column wheeled up from the mass and whirled along the sky with frightful rapidity. The distant murmur grew to a roar, and the roar deepened and increased until it was like the surf-swell of a thousand oceans. Stunned by the tumult, fascinated by the sublime terror of the spectacle, he followed with his gaze the course of the destructive traveler, which flew forward, sweeping down upon the country closer and more close. The air was black—night fell upon every thing—he saw the tornado—holding in its bosom dust, stones, branches of trees, roofs of houses, a dark, whirling mass of objects, which it had caught up as it ran—reach the river, and with an instinct of self-preservation, threw himself flat upon the ground, behind a rock which jutted up near him. He could tell when it smote the forest, for the tremendous roar was pierced through with the snapping, crackling sound of immense trees, broken off like pipe-stems and hurled in a universal crash to the earth.
A short time he crouched where he was, held down in fact, pressed, flattened, hurt by the trampling winds; but nothing else struck him, and presently he struggled to his feet.
What a spectacle met him, as he looked toward the forest from which he had so lately emerged! A vast and overwhelming ruin, in the midst of which it seemed impossible that any life, animal or vegetable, should have escaped. A desolation, such as poets have pictured as clinging to the "last man," came over the soul of Philip Moore. Where were his friends? where that gay party he had invited from their distant homes to meet this fate? where was Alice, his wife of an hour? His manhood yielded to the blow; he cowered and sobbed like a child.
The darkness passed over for a brief time, only to come again with the setting sun, which had sent some lurid gleams of light, like torches to fire the ruin, through the storm, before sinking from sight. A drenching rain fell in torrents, the wind blew chilly and rough.
"I will search for her—I will find her, and die beside her mangled remains," murmured Philip, arising and turning toward the forest.
The incessant flashes of lightning were his only lamps as he struggled through the intricate mazes of fallen trees. It was a task which despair, not hope, prompted, to toil through rain and wind and darkness, over and under and through splintered trunks and tangled foliage, looking, by the lightning's evanescent glare, for some glimpse of the white bridal robe of his beloved. The hours prolonged themselves into days and weeks to his suffering imagination, and still it was not morning. As if not content with the destruction already wrought, the elements continued to hurl their anger upon the prostrate wilderness; ever and anon the sharp tongue of the lightning would lick up some solitary tree which the wind had left in its hurry; hail cut the fallen foliage, and the rain fell heavily. It was a strange bridal night.
Not knowing what moment he might stumble upon the crushed body of some one of his friends, Philip wandered through the storm. He felt more and more as if he were going mad—reason trembled and shuddered at his misfortunes. Two or three times he resolved to dash his brains out against a tree, to prevent himself the misery of going mad and yet living on in those dismal solitudes, till hunger conquered what grief refused to vanquish. Then the lightning would glimmer over some white object, perchance the bark freshly scaled from some shattered trunk, and he would hurry toward it, calling—"Alice!" as once she had called, "Philip," through a less wretched night.
It seemed to him that if no other morning began to come before long, the morning of eternity must open its gates upon the world; the strength of the tempest was spent; only fitful gushes of wind swept past; here and there a star looked down hurriedly through the drifting clouds; the solemn roll of the thunder resounded afar, like the drums of an enemy beating a retreat.