e
door, which they quickly locked between themselves and the disquieting
night.

Once safe within, relief from their nerves came at the simple effort of
laughter, and an hour later, when it was clear that the stars still held
to their courses, the two ladies were at their ease again, beneath the
lamp on the table, with speech and conversation to provide an escape
from thought. The night seemed to cool its high temper as the hours wore
on, and gradually the storm allowed itself to be forgotten.

Together, at bed time, the two made their tour of the house, locking the
windows and doors, and visiting the pantry on the way for an apple.
Outside all was truly calm and still, as, with mock and exaggerated
caution, they peered through one last open window. A periodic, lazy
flash from the far distance was all that the sky could muster of its
earlier wrath. And they tripped upstairs and to bed, with that hilarity
which always attends the feminine pursuit of repose.

* * *

But in the night they were awakened.

Not for nothing, after all, had the skies marshalled that afternoon
array of their forces. Now they were as terribly vociferous as they had
been terrifyingly still before. Leaves, that had drooped melancholy and
motionless in the afternoon, were whipped from their branches at the
snatch of the wind. The rain came down in a solid cataract. The thunder
was a steady bombardment, and the frolic powers above, that had toyed
and practised with soundless flashes in the afternoon, had grown wanton
at their sport, and hurled their electric shots at earth in appallingly
accurate marksmanship. Between the flashes from the sky, the steady
glare of a burning barn here and there reddened the blackness. The
village dead, under the pelted sod, must have shuddered at the din. Even
the moments of lull were saturate with terrors. In them rose audible the
roar of waters, the clatter of frightened animals, the rattle of gates,
the shouts of voices, the click of heels on the flags of the streets, as
the villagers hurried to the succor of neighbors fighting fires out on
the hills. For long afterward the tempest of that night was remembered.
For hours while it lasted, trees were toppled over, and houses rocked to
the blast.

And for as long as it would, the rain beat in through an open window and
wetted the two women where they lay in their bed, afraid to stir, even
to help themselves, gripped in a paralysis of terror.

Their nerves were