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The Heart of Monadnock
77

that surged around them. Innumerable needles of rain smote his face and blinded his eyes.

Flash! crack! BANG! came the great guns above. Blinding glare would show a sky of rent, fierce, tumultuous clouds in layer after layer. If only he could more easily keep his rain-blinded eyes open, to see those incredible effects of the cloud-masses when the lightning tore them apart! Such marvels of shapes and depths and unearthly colors in them! And also such tremendous gradations of sound in the rolling thunder as it reverberated from every side at once, now near, now far, crashing against the cliffs above, and tumbling its gigantic echoes back on his own head. Mad revelry of the storm-gods! Bang! BANG! Bang! BANG!

Minutes passed. The storm-gods paused to breathe. The fascinated spectator got his own breath. Then it was all on again, rain and blast and pyrotechnics and water spouts. Another pause. A longer one. An-