“‘No warning of the approach of flame,
Swiftly like sudden death it came.’
If some one had struck me from behind on the bump of firmness with a sledge-hammer, or if we had been in the interior of a gigantic percussion shell which an external blow had suddenly exploded, I fancy the sensation might have resembled that which I for the first instant experienced. We were blinded, deafened, smothered, and struck, all in a breath. The place seemed filled with fire, our ears rang with the report, fragments of what looked like incandescent matter rained down upon us as though a meteorite had burst, and a suffocating sulphurous odour—probably due to the sudden production of ozone in large quantities—almost choked us. For an instant we reeled as though stunned, but each sprang to his feet and instinctively made for the door. What my companions’ ideas were I cannot tell; mine were few and simple—I had been struck, or was being struck, or both; the roof would be down upon us in another moment; inside was death, outside our only safety. The door opened inwards, and our simultaneous rush delayed our escape; but it was speedily thrown back, and, dashing out into the blinding hail, we plunged, dazed and almost stupefied, into the nearest shed. For the next few minutes the lightning continued to play about us in so awful a manner that we were in no mood calmly to investigate the nature or extent of our injuries. It was enough that we were still among the living, though I must own that, at first, I had a fearful suspicion that poor Imseng was seriously wounded. He held his head between his hands, and rolled it about in so daft a manner, and was so odd and unnatural in his movements generally, that it struck me his brain might have received some injury. I, for my part, was painfully conscious of a good deal of pain in the region of the right instep, and I saw that one of Christian’s hands was bleeding, and that he was holding both his thighs as if in suffering.
“Gradually the storm drew off towards the Mont Cenis, and, with minds free from the tension of imminent peril, we had time to take stock of our condition. It was a relief to see Imseng let go his head and observe that it remained erect; to hear Christian say that his thighs were getting better; and to find, on examining my foot, that the mischief was nothing more than a flesh wound, which was bleeding but slightly. My hat, indeed, was knocked in, my pockets filled with stones and plaster, and my heart, it may be, somewhat nearer my mouth than usual, but otherwise we could congratulate ourselves, with deep thankfulness on a most marvellous escape from serious harm.
“On comparing our impressions, Imseng declared that the lightning had entered through the window, struck the altar, glanced off from it to the wall, and then vanished, whilst Christian and I agreed in the belief that the roof had been the part struck, and the flash had descended almost vertically upon us. Quitting our place of refuge and repairing to the chapel, we encountered a scene of ruin which at once confirmed the correctness of our views. The lightning had evidently first struck the iron cross outside and smashed in the roof, dashing fragments of stone and plaster upon us which, brilliantly illuminated, looked to our dazed and confused vision like flakes of fiery matter. It had then encountered the altar, overturning the iron cross and wooden candlesticks only 3 feet from the back of my head as I sat on the step, tearing the wreath of artificial flowers or worsted rosettes strung on copper wire which surrounded the figure of the Virgin, and scattering the fragments in all directions. Next it glanced against the wall, tore down, or otherwise damaged, some of the votive pictures (engravings), and splintered portions of their frames into ‘matchwood.’ The odour of ozone was still strong, the water from the melting hail was coming freely through the roof, and the walls were in two places cracked to within 5 feet of the ground. In fact, as a chapel, the building was ruined, though showing little traces, externally, of the damage done, so that it is possible—unless a stray shepherd happened to look in—that its condition would for the first time become known upon the arrival of the pilgrims on the eve of 5th August.