loud coming from the west, whilst from
the same quarter the thunder is rumbling loudly. What a sublime genius I
should have appeared in the eyes of my two fools, if, having a short time
before taken notice of the sky in that part of the horizon, I had
announced to them that my operation would be attended by that phenomenon.

The cloud spreads with fearful rapidity, and soon the sky seems covered
with a funeral pall, on which the most vivid flashes of lightning keep
blazing every moment.

Such a storm was a very natural occurrence, and I had no reason to be
astonished at it, but somehow, fear was beginning to creep into me, and I
wished myself in my room. My fright soon increased at the sight of the
lightning, and on hearing the claps of thunder which succeeded each other
with fearful rapidity and seemed to roar over my very head. I then
realized what extraordinary effect fear can have on the mind, for I
fancied that, if I was not annihilated by the fires of heaven which were
flashing all around me, it was only because they could not enter my magic
ring. Thus was I admiring my own deceitful work! That foolish reason
prevented me from leaving the circle in spite of the fear which caused me
to shudder. If it had not been for that belief, the result of a cowardly
fright, I would not have remained one minute where I was, and my hurried
flight would no doubt have opened the eyes of my two dupes, who could not
have failed to see that, far from being a magician, I was only a
poltroon. The violence of the wind, the claps of thunder, the piercing
cold, and above all, fear, made me tremble all over like an aspen leaf.
My system, which I thought proof against every accident, had vanished: I
acknowledged an avenging God who had waited for this opportunity of
punishing me at one blow for all my sins, and of annihilating me, in
order to put an end to my want of faith. The complete immobility which
paralyzed all my limbs seemed to me a proof of the uselessness of my
repentance, and that conviction only increased my consternation.

But the roaring of the thunder dies away, the rain begins to fall
heavily, danger vanishes, and I feel my courage reviving. Such is man! or
at all events, such was I at that moment. It was raining so fast that, if
it had continued pouring with the same violence for a quarter of an hour,
the country would have been inundated. As soon as the rain had ceased,
the wind abated, the clouds were dispersed, and the