informed them of what
we were unable to conceal--that it was the intention of the American
commander to _bombard the city_.

The scene was to us deeply distressing.

Dona Joaquina wrung her hands, and called upon the Virgin with all the
earnestness of entreaty. The sisters clung alternately to their mother
and Don Cosme, weeping and crying aloud, "_Pobre Narcisso! nuestro
hermanito--le asesinaran_!" (Poor Narcisso, our little brother!--they
will murder him!)

In the midst of this distressing scene the door of the drawing-room was
thrown suddenly open, and a servant rushed in, shouting in an agitated
voice, "_El norte! el norte_!"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"The Norther."

We hurried after Don Cosme towards the _ante-sala_, both myself and my
companions ignorant of this new object of dread.

When we emerged from the stairway the scene that hailed us was one of
terrific sublimity. Earth and heaven had undergone a sudden and
convulsive change. The face of nature, but a moment since gay with
summer smiles, was now hideously distorted. The sky had changed
suddenly from its blue and sunny brightness to an aspect dark and
portentous.

Along the north-west a vast volume of black vapour rolled up over the
Sierra Madre, and rested upon the peaks of the mountains. From this,
ragged masses, parting in fantastic forms and groupings, floated off
against the concavity of the sky as though the demons of the storm were
breaking up from an angry council. Each of these, as it careered across
the heavens, seemed bent upon some spiteful purpose.

An isolated fragment hung lowering above the snowy cone of Orizava, like
a huge vampire suspended over his sleeping victim.

From the great "parent cloud" that rested upon the Sierra Madre,
lightning-bolts shot out and forked hither and thither or sank into the
detached masses--the messengers of the storm-king bearing his fiery
mandates across the sky.

Away along the horizon of the east moved the yellow pillars of sand,
whirled upward by the wind, like vast columnar towers leading to heaven.

The storm had not yet reached the rancho. The leaves lay motionless
under a dark and ominous calm; but the wild screams of many birds--the
shrieks of the swans, the discordant notes of the frightened pea-fowl,
the chattering of parrots as they sought the shelter of the thick olives
in terrified flight--all betokened the speedy advent of some fearful
convulsion.

The rain in large drops