eight upon the earth. And this effect was accompanied by a
sudden silence--the usual busy out-of-door country noises were suddenly
suspended: the locusts stopped their singing; not a bird twittered;
not a leaf rustled: the world held its breath. And if the river went
on babbling, babbling, that was a very part of the silence--accented,
underscored it.

Yet still you could not discern a rack of cloud anywhere in the
sky--still, for a minute or two.... Then, before you knew how it had
happened, the snow-summits of Monte Sfiorito were completely lapped in
cloud.

And now the cloud spread with astonishing rapidity--spread and sank,
cancelling the sun, shrouding the Gnisi to its waist, curling in smoky
wreaths among the battlements of the Cornobastone, turning the lake
from sapphire to sombre steel, filling the entire valley with a strange
mixture of darkness and an uncanny pallid light. Overhead it hung like
a vast canopy of leaden-hued cotton-wool; at the west it had a fringe of
fiery crimson, beyond which a strip of clear sky on the horizon diffused
a dull metallic yellow, like tarnished brass.

Presently, in the distance, there was a low growl of thunder; in a
minute, a louder, angrier growl--as if the first were a menace which had
not been heeded. Then there was a violent gush of wind--cold; smelling
of the forests from which it came; scattering everything before it,
dust, dead leaves, the fallen petals of flowers; making the trees writhe
and labour, like giants wrestling with invisible giants; making the
short grass shudder; corrugating the steel surface of the lake. Then two
or three big raindrops fell--and then, the deluge.

Peter climbed up to his observatory--a square four-windowed turret, at
the top of the house--thence to watch the storm and exult in it. Really
it was splendid--to see, to hear; its immense wild force, its immense
reckless fury. Rain had never rained so hard, he thought. Already,
the lake, the mountain slopes, the villas and vineyards westward, were
totally blotted out, hidden behind walls and walls of water; and even
the neighbouring lawns of Ventirose, the confines of his own garden,
were barely distinguishable, blurred as by a fog. The big drops pelted
the river like bullets, sending up splashes bigger than themselves.
And the tiled roof just above his head resounded with a continual loud
crepitation, as if a multitude of iron-shod elves were dancing on it.
The thunder crashed, roared, reve