ure’s glittering eye, followed by a startling crash. 
Such was not the method of this tempest’s mad- 
ness. Early in the evening, the distant, silent 
glow in several quarters of the heavens gave 
premonition of the scene to come. As the 
night advanced, and the storm squadrons gath- 
ered in ever-narrowing circles, the flashes be- 
came at length extremely numerous, but as yet 
without even an ominous rumble to break the 
silence; which I can only explain by the fact 
that the electrical discharges were almost ex- 
clusively from cloud to cloud, so that the thun- 
der was reflected away from the earth. At 
about ten o’clock the storm had swept directly 
overhead, incessant flashes filled the sky, and, 
while in ordinary storms it is a reign of dark- 
ness, broken by occasional blinding light, the 
night was now continuously luminous, inter- 
rupted by instant flashes of darkness. ‘The en- 
tire landscape—mountains, lake, and islands— 
came clearly into view beneath a steady glare 
that surpassed the brightest moonlight, and, for 
a quarter of an hour, one needed no artificial 
light even to read the time upon a watch. 
And now, amid torrents of rain, 
‘* broke 
The thunder like a whole sea overhead——” 
233 
