"That was a nasty flash," said Colonel Everard, with an observant glance at the lovely Juliet-like figure on the balcony. "Mademoiselle, had you not better come in?"
"When it begins to rain I will come in," she said, without changing her posture. "I hear the singing so well out here. Besides, I love the storm."
A tumultuous crash of thunder, tremendous for its uproar and the length of time it was prolonged, made us look at each other again with anxious faces.
"What are we waiting for? Oh, my heart! Kiss me straight on the brows and part! Again! again, my heart, my heart! What are we waiting for, you and I? A pleading look--a stifled cry! Good-bye for ever---"
Horror! what was that? A lithe swift serpent of fire twisting venomously through the dark heavens! Zara raised her arms, looked up, smiled, and fell--senseless! With such appalling suddenness that we had scarcely recovered from the blinding terror of that forked lightning-flash, when we saw her lying prone before us on the balcony where one instant before she had stood erect and smiling! With exclamations of alarm and distress we lifted and bore her within the room and laid her tenderly down upon the nearest sofa. At that moment a deafening, terrific thunder-clap--one only--as if a huge bombshell had burst in the air, shook the ground under our feet; and then with a swish and swirl of long pent-up and suddenly- released wrath, down came the rain.
Amy's voice died away in a last "Good-bye!" and she rushed from the piano, with pale face and trembling lips, gasping out: "What has happened? What is the matter?"
"She has been stunned by a lightning-flash," I said, trying to speak calmly, while I loosened Zara's dress and sprinkled her forehead with eau-de-Cologne from a scent-bottle Mrs. Challoner had handed to me. "She will recover in a few minutes."
But my limbs trembled under me, and tears, in spite of myself, forced their way into my eyes.
Heliobas meanwhile--his countenance white and set as a marble mask-- shut the window fiercely, pulled down the blind, and drew the heavy silken curtains close. He then approached his sister's senseless form, and, taking her wrist tenderly, felt for her pulse. We looked on in the deepest anxiety. The Challoner girls shivered with terror, and began to cry. Mrs. Everard, with more self-possession, dipped a handkerchief in cold water and laid it on Zara's temples; but no faint sigh parted the set yet smiling lips--no sign of life was visible. All this while the rain swept down in gusty torrents and rattled furiously against the window-panes; while the wind, no longer a moan, had risen into a shriek, as of baffled yet vindictive anger. At last Heliobas spoke.