armlands sweeping smoothly onward to the heath. Now, the shadow of the
storm had draped hillside and valley and was touching the bloom of the
heather with the edge of its sable robe. Bird voices were still and all
life was hushed before the coming of the tempest. The ghostly trees
bending low above the aisles whispered fearfully one to another, and
about Paul was a darkness like that of a crypt. The earth and her
children shrank as from an impending blow.

Several large raindrops, heralds of the torrent to come, fell through an
opening above and pattered upon the dusty carpet at Paul's feet. He
glanced upward at the darkening pall which seemed to rest upon the hill
top. Its oppressive blackness suggested weight, so that one trembled for
the stability of the chalky scarp which must uphold that ebon canopy.
Paul moved further along the aisle to a spot where the foliage was
unbroken, as rain began a rapid tattoo upon the leafy roof. In the
following instant the hillside was illuminated wildly as lightning wrote
its message in angular characters across the curtain of darkness. Life
cowered affrighted to the bosom of mother earth. The raindrops ceased,
awaiting the crashing word of the thunder. It came, deafening, awesome;
buffeting this bluff and that rebounding, rebounding again and
muttering down the valleys and the aisles of the hills. Then burst the
rain, torrential, tropical.

In the emotional vision of Paul, horror rode the tempest. Man,
discarding the emblem of the Cross and prostrating himself at the feet
of strange idols, now was chained to a planet deserted by God, doomed
and left to the mercy of monstrous earth spirits revitalised by homage
and made potent again. To this gruesome fancy he resigned himself with
the spiritual abandonment whereof he was capable and his capacity for
which had made his work what it was: he grovelled before a nameless
power which dwelt in primeval caverns of the underworld and spoke with
the voice of the storm. Fear touched him, because the Divine face was
turned from man. Awe wrapped him about, because the Word had failed to
redeem, and a new message must be given. The Prince of Darkness became a
real figure--and seemed to be very near him. As if the lightning had
been a holy fire, with it enlightenment burst upon his mind, and he saw
himself no longer unwanted, flotsam, a thing supine, but a buckler--a
shield--one chosen and elected to a mighty task. The words of Don had
first raise