The silence did not last long,
however, for in a few minutes, during which the blood fell very thickly,
making their hands and visages appear as if they had been steeped
in gore--in a few moments, we say, the heavens, which had become one
black and dismal mass, opened, and from the chasm issued a red flash of
lightning, which was followed almost immediately by a roar of thunder,
so loud and terrific that the whole people became fearfully agitated
as they stood round the blaze. It was extremely difficult, indeed, for
ignorant persons to account for, or speculate upon, this strange and
frightful phenomenon. As they stood in fear and terror, with their faces
apparently bathed in blood, they seemed rather to resemble a group of
hideous murderers, standing as if about to be driven into the! flames of
perdition itself. To compare them to a tribe of red Indians surrounding
their war fires, would be but a faint and feeble simile when contrasted
with the terror which, notwithstanding the gory hue with which they
were covered from top to toe, might be read in their terrified eyes and
visages.
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