In half an hour more we entered the grassy nook where we had left our horses; and the recompense of our prowess from the guide when we pointed out to him the spot whence we had descended was a look of contemptuous pity, accompanied by the remark that we were “two mad Franks!”
We had scarcely taken a hasty glass of wine, and mounted our horses, when two loud claps of thunder, following close upon each other, rattled along the mountain-tops, and enforced on us the necessity of speed. But, alas! there was no possibility of travelling at more than a foot’s-pace between Mount Olympus and Broussa; all that we could do, therefore, was to commence our homeward journey without a moment’s delay, and trust to our lucky stars, both for finding our way, and for getting home dry. On we pressed accordingly, “over bank, bush, and scaur;” but in half an hour we were so completely enveloped in mist that we could not see each other. The guide still moved steadily on, however, like a man who is sure of his path; and I felt no misgivings until, on arriving in the dry bed of a torrent from which the stream had been diverted by some convulsion of nature, he suddenly ceased the wild monotonous melody with which he had favoured us for a considerable time, and, turning round in his saddle, remarked quietly: “We are lost.”
For an instant no one replied. We had each anticipated the probability of such an occurrence, but it was not the less disagreeable when it came to pass. What was to be done? First, the guide was convinced that he had borne too much to the right, and accordingly we all turned our horses in the other direction; when being close upon a wall of rock that loomed out from the vapour like some bristling fortress, he admitted that this could not be the way, and that consequently he must have inclined too much to the left. We performed a fresh evolution with equal success: the man was fairly bewildered; and meanwhile the vapour was spreading thicker and faster about us.
At length my companion suggested the expediency of shouting aloud, that in the event of any shepherd or goatherd being in the neighbourhood, we might procure assistance and information. Shout, accordingly, we did, at the very pitch of our lungs; but the mists were so dense that they stifled the voice, and we were ourselves conscious that we could not be heard at any great distance. After the suspense of a long, weary half-hour, we had just abandoned all hope of help, when a huge dog came bounding out of the vapour, barking furiously, but to us his voice was music, as it assured us of the vicinity of some mountaineer; at the same moment the mists broke partially away, and the guide, uttering an exclamation of joy, suddenly descended a steep bank, and we found ourselves on the skirts of the fir wood, and in the mule-track which we had followed in the morning.
We had scarcely congratulated each other on the termination of our dilemma, and the partial dispersion of the vapours, when a jagged line of serpent-like lightning ran shimmering through the broad flash that lit up for a second the whole wild scene amid which we were moving; and at the same instant, the loudest and the longest peal broke from the sky to which I ever listened; rock after rock caught up the sound, and flung it back, until the wizard thunder rattled in fainter echoes down into the plain.
It was an awful moment! The terrified animals stood suddenly still, and trembled with affright; but we had no time to waste upon alarm, for, as if conjured by that awful crash, and the wild light by which it was accompanied, down came the imprisoned waters from the mass of vapour that hung above us. I can scarcely call it rain; it was as though a sluice had been let loose upon us, and in an instant we were drenched. Every mountain stream grew suddenly into a torrent—every wayside fountain, (and there were many in the forest formed of the hollow trunks of trees,) overflowed its basin—the branches against which we brushed in our passage, scattered the huge drops from their leaves—large stones fell rattling down the sides of the mountain—in short it was as wild a storm as ever inspired the pencil of Salvator Rosa; and its solemnity was deepened by the twilight gloom of the clinging and changeful vapours.
We arrived at Broussa both wet and weary, having been thirteen hours on the road; but, despite all that I suffered, I would not have lost the sublime spectacle on which I gazed from the summit of Mount Olympus, for the enjoyment of a month of luxurious ease. Well might Howitt exclaim, in the gushing out of his pious and poetical nature:—
“Praise be to God for the mountains!”