The
people had left their houses, as they usually do in such cases, from an
apprehension that if they remained in them they might be buried in their
ruins. Some had got ladders, and attempted, at the risk of their lives,
to secure the thatch upon the roofs by placing flat stones, sods, and
such other materials, as by their weight, might keep it from being borne
off like dust upon the wings of the tempest. Their voices, and! screams,
and lamentations, in accordance, as they were, with the uproar of the
elements, added a new feature of terror to this dreadful tumult. The
lightnings now became more vivid and frequent, and the pealing of the
thunder so loud and near, that he felt his very ears stunned by it.
Every cloud, as the lightnings flashed from it, seemed to open, and to
disclose, as it were, a furnace of blazing fire within its black
and awful shroud. The whole country around, with all its terrified
population running about in confusion and dismay, were for the moment
made as clear and distinct to the eye as if it were noonday, with this
difference, that the scene borrowed from the red and sheeted flashes a
wild and spectral character which the light of day never gives.
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