98 <f(AMBLES OF A VOZMINIS 



Then one night there came a lurid sunset, an angry 

 sky, long plumes of ominous cloud. The morning dawned 

 in stainless splendour, a sunrise of promise all too fair. 

 Clouds began to settle on the crest of Siabod. Masses 

 of grey vapour rolling down broke in great sheets of rain 

 that stalked like phantoms through the valley. All day 

 the tempest grew. 



Each rivulet along the mountain side swells into an 

 angry torrent, and from the cliff that overhangs the 

 hollow once more " the wild cataract leaps in glory." 

 And now, exulting in the added strength of all its 

 hundred turbulent vassals, the river rises in its might. 

 The old stepping-stones are knee-deep under a rushing 

 flood. Over giant boulders, seething and struggling, 

 roars the furious stream. And when at last the stormy 

 night comes down the river has risen to its very brim. 

 Still falls the rain. All night long there rises louder 

 still the cry of the river, and when morning breaks, the 

 floods are out on all th 3 level shore. High above unseen 

 boulders the white horses are rushing to the sea. The great 

 fall below the bridge is one huge mass of roaring, boiling, 

 plunging water. The sun is bright on all the landscape, 

 on the vivid green of new-mown fields, on snowy heaps 

 of drifting foam. But the hay that was lying in the 

 meadows is whirling with the merciless stream or trailing 

 sadly in the broken reeds, 



111 fares it now with all the children of the river. 

 Along the shore the sandpiper flits with mournful note, 

 and looks in vain for her haunt among the shingle. The 

 martins in the river bank peer anxiously out at the 



