Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

166 NEW AKABIAN NIGHTS.
jBce in which thy soul delighteth — the kid without the
horns 1 '
Even as she uttered the words, there was a great
rumour of joy through all the circle of worshippers ; it
rose, and fell, and rose again ; and swelled at last into
rapture, when the tall negro, who had stepped an instant
into the chapel, reappeared before the door, carrying in
his arms the body of the slave -girl, Cora. I know not if
I saw what followed. When next my mind awoke to a
clear knowledge, Cora was laid upon the stej)s before the
serpents ; the negro with the knife stood over her ; the
knife rose ; and at this I screamed out in my great horror,
bidding them, in God's name, to pause.
A stillness fell upon the mob of cannibals. A moment
more, and they must have thrown off this stupor, and I
infallibly have perished. But heaven had designed to
save me. The silence of these wretched men was not
yet broken, when there arose, in the empty night, a sound
louder than the roar of any European tempest, swifter
to travel than the wings of any Eastern wind. Black-
ness engulfed the world : blackness, stabbed across
from every side by intricate and blinding lightning.
Almost in the same second, at one world- swallowing
stride, the heart of the tornado reached the clearing. I
heard an agonising crash, and the light of my reason was
overwhelmed.
When I recovered consciousness, the day was come.
I was unhurt ; the trees close about me had not lost
a bough ; and I might have thought at first that the
tornado was a feature in a dream. It was otherwise
indeed ; for when I looked abroad, I perceived I had
escaped destruction by a hand's-breadth. Right through
the forest, which here covered hill and dale, the storm
had ploughed a lane of ruin. On either hand, the trees
waved uninjured in the air of the morning ; but in the
forthright course of its advance, the hurricane had left
no trophy standing. Everything, in that line, tree, man
or animal, the desecrated chapel and the votaries of
Hoodoo, had been subverted and destroyed in that brief
spasm of anger of the powers of air. Everything, but a