succeeded. Then a terrific flash and peal broke directly over us, and a
great tree, struck by a red-hot bolt, fell with a deafening crash,
half-way across our path. Peal after peal followed, and then the
rain--not filtered into drops as it falls from our colder sky, but in
broad, blinding sheets, poured full and heavy on our shelterless heads.

'Ah! there it comes!' shouted the Colonel. 'God have mercy upon us!'

Suddenly a crashing, crackling, thundering roar rose above the storm,
filling the air, and shaking the solid earth till it trembled beneath
our horses' feet, as if upheaved by a volcano. Nearer and nearer the
sound came, till it seemed that all the legions of darkness were
unloosed in the forest, and were mowing down the great pines as the
mower mows the grass with big scythe. Then an awful, sweeping crash
thundered directly at our backs, and turning round, as if to face a
foe, my horse, who had borne the roar and the blinding flash till then,
unmoved, paralyzed with dread, and panting for breath, sunk to the
ground; while close at my side the Colonel, standing erect in his
stirrups, his head uncovered to the pouring sky, cried out:

'THANK GOD, WE ARE SAVED!'

There--not three hundred yards in our rear, had passed the
TORNADO--uprooting trees, prostrating dwellings, and sending many a soul
to its last account, but sparing us for another day! For thirty miles
through the forest it had mowed a swath of two hundred feet, then moved
on to stir the ocean to its briny depths.

With a full heart, I remounted, and turning my horse, pressed on in the
rain. We said not a word till a friendly opening pointed the way to a