ght by the blast and threw the inhabitants into wild terror. The
rain fell in torrents. Each flash of the forked lightning showed a
piece of roofing or a window-blind flying through the air to fall
with a horrible crash. Not a person or a carriage moved through the
streets. When the hoarse reverberations of the thunder, a hundred
times re-echoed, lost themselves in the distance, there was heard
the soughing of the wind as it drove the raindrops with a continuous
tick-tack against the concha-panes of the closed windows.

Two patrolmen sheltered themselves under the eaves of a building near
the nunnery, one a private and the other a _distinguido_.

"What's the use of our staying here?" said the private.

"No one is moving about the streets. We ought to get into a house. My
_querida_ lives in Calle Arzobispo."

"From here over there is quite a distance and we'll get wet," answered
the _distinguido_.

"What does that matter just so the lightning doesn't strike us?"

"Bah, don't worry! The nuns surely have a lightningrod to protect
them."

"Yes," observed the private, "but of what use is it when the night
is so dark?"

As he said this he looked upward to stare into the darkness. At
that moment a prolonged streak of lightning flashed, followed by a
terrific roar.

"_Naku! Susmariosep!_" exclaimed the private, crossing himself and
catching hold of his companion. "Let's get away from here."

"What's happened?"

"Come, come away from here," he repeated with his teeth rattling
from fear.

"What have you seen?"

"A specter!" he murmured, trembling with fright.

"A specter?"

"On the roof there. It must be the nun who practises magic during
the night."

The _distinguido_ thrust his head out to look, just as a flash of
lightning furrowed the heavens with a vein of fire and sent a horrible
crash earthwards. "_Jesus!_" he exclaimed, also crossing himself.

In the brilliant glare of the celestial light he had seen a white
figure standing almost on the ridge of the roof with arms and face
raised toward the sky as if praying to it. The heavens responded with
lightning and thunderbolts!

As the sound of the thunder rolled away a sad plaint was heard.

"That's not the wind, it's the specter," murmured the private, as if
in response to the pressure of his companion's hand.

"Ay! Ay!" came through the air, rising above the noise of the rain,
nor could the whistling wind drown that sweet and mournful voice
charged