might baffle speed.

Another flash, another explosion, the hissing noise of rain.
Lord Milford moved aside, and jealous of the eye of another,
read a letter from Chifney, and in a few minutes afterwards
offered to take the odds against Pocket Hercules. Mr Latour
walked to the window, surveyed the heavens, sighed that there
was not time to send his tiger from the door to Epsom, and get
information whether the storm had reached the Surrey hills,
for to-night's operations. It was too late. So he took a
rusk and a glass of lemonade, and retired to rest with a cool
head and a cooler heart.

The storm raged, the incessant flash played as it were round
the burnished cornice of the chamber, and threw a lurid hue on
the scenes of Watteau and Boucher that sparkled in the
medallions over the lofty doors. The thunderbolts seemed to
descend in clattering confusion upon the roof. Sometimes
there was a moment of dead silence, broken only by the
pattering of the rain in the street without, or the pattering
of the dice in a chamber at hand. Then horses were backed,
bets made, and there were loud and frequent calls for brimming
goblets from hurrying waiters, distracted by the lightning and
deafened by the peal. It seemed a scene and a supper where
the marble guest of Juan might have been expected, and had he
arrived, he would have found probably hearts as bold and
spirits as reckless as he encountered in Andalusia.