But the
storm, though gathering swiftly, had not yet come up; and the prevailing
stillness was the more solemn, from the dull intelligence that seemed to
hover in the air, of noise and conflict afar off.
It was very dark; but in the murky sky there were masses of cloud which
shone with a lurid light, like monstrous heaps of copper that had been
heated in a furnace, and were growing cold. These had been advancing
steadily and slowly, but they were now motionless, or nearly so. As the
carriage clattered round the corners of the streets, it passed at every
one a knot of persons who had come there--many from their houses close
at hand, without hats--to look up at that quarter of the sky. And now a
very few large drops of rain began to fall, and thunder rumbled in the
distance.
Jonas sat in a corner of the carriage with his bottle resting on his
knee, and gripped as tightly in his hand as if he would have ground its
neck to powder if he could. Instinctively attracted by the night, he
had laid aside the pack of cards upon the cushion; and with the same
involuntary impulse, so intelligible to both of them as not to occasion
a remark on either side, his companion had extinguished the lamp.
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