the fire leaped into flame and our hearts bounded in our sides.
Now the storm in its might would seize and shake the four corners
of the roof, roaring like Leviathan in anger. Anon, in a lull,
cold eddies of tempest moved shudderingly in the room, lifting the
hair upon our heads and passing between us as we sat. And again
the wind would break forth in a chorus of melancholy sounds,
hooting low in the chimney, wailing with flutelike softness round
the house.

It was perhaps eight o'clock when Rorie came in and pulled me
mysteriously to the door. My uncle, it appeared, had frightened
even his constant comrade; and Rorie, uneasy at his extravagance,
prayed me to come out and share the watch. I hastened to do as I
was asked; the more readily as, what with fear and horror, and the
electrical tension of the night, I was myself restless and disposed
for action. I told Mary to be under no alarm, for I should be a
safeguard on her father; and wrapping myself warmly in a plaid, I
followed Rorie into the open air.

The night, though we were so little past midsummer, was as dark as
January. Intervals of a groping twilight alternated with spells of
utter blackness; and it was impossible to trace the reason of these
changes in the flying horror of the sky. The wind blew the breath
out of a man's nostrils; all heaven seemed to thunder overhead like
one huge sail; and when there fell a momentary lull on Aros, we
could hear the gusts dismally sweeping in the distance. Over all
the lowlands of the Ross, the wind must have blown as fierce as on
the open sea; and God only knows the uproar that was raging around
the head of Ben Kyaw. Sheets of mingled spray and rain were driven
in our faces. All round the isle of Aros the surf, with an