Soon after sunset that evening the Bailiff looked in, and said there was some sheet lightning in the north, and he was going to call back some of the men to put tarpaulins over two or three loaded waggons, as he thought, after so much dry, hot weather, there would be a great storm. The lightning increased very much, and after it grew dusk the flashes lit up the sky. Before sunset the sky had seemed quite cloudless, but now every flash showed innumerable narrow bands of clouds, very thin, behind which the electricity played to and fro. While Bevis and Mark were watching it, Bevis’s governor came out, and looking up said it would not rain and there was no danger; it was a sky-storm, and the lightning was at least a mile high. But the lightning became very fierce and almost incessant, sometimes crooked like a scimitar of flame, some times jagged, sometimes zigzag; and now and then vast acres of violet light, which flooded the ground and showed every tree and leaf and flower, all still and motionless; and after which, though lesser flashes were going on, it seemed for a moment quite dark, so much was the eye overpowered. Bevis and Mark went up into the bench-room, where it was very close and sultry, and sat by the open window with the swords for Pompey bound up in two bundles and the standards, but they were half afraid no one would come for them. Their shadows were perpetually cast upon the white wall opposite as the flashes came and went. The crossbow and lance, the boomerang and knobbed clubs were visible, and all the tools on the bench. Now and then, when the violet flashes came, the lightning seemed to linger in the room, to fill it with a blaze and stop there a moment. In the darkness that followed one of these they heard a voice call “Bevis” underneath the window, and saw Phil and Val Crassus, who had come for the swords. Mark lowered the bundles out of window by a cord, but when they had got them they still stood there. “Why don’t you go?” said Mark. “Lightning,” said Val. “It’s awful.” It really was very powerful. The pears on the wall, and everything however minute stood out more distinctly defined than in daytime. “It’s a mile high,” said Bevis. “It won’t hurt you.” “Ted wouldn’t come,” said Phil. “He’s gone to bed, and covered his head. You don’t know how it looks out in the fields, all by yourself; it’s all very well for you indoors.” “I’ll come with you,” said Bevis directly; up he jumped and went down to them, followed by Mark. “Why wouldn’t Ted come?” said Mark. “He’s afraid,” said Phil, “and so was I till Val said he would come with me. Will lightning come to brass?” The flashes were reflected from the brass rings on the standards.