A moment or two after, indeed, but so close upon what he said that no other observation had been made, I heard a kind of rushing noise; and, looking up towards the cloud above us, which hid with a thick veil the whole tops of the mountains, I saw it agitated as if by a strong wind, while a roar, more awful than that of thunder, made itself heard above. I knew the voice of the _lavange_, and with an instant perception, I know not how nor why, that it was rather behind than before us, I laid my hand upon Father Francis's bridle, and spurred forward like lightning. To my surprise, the obstinate mule on which he was mounted, instead of resisting my effort to make it go on, put itself at once into a gallop, as if it were instinctively aware of the approaching danger. Houssaye and the guide followed with all speed; and, in a moment after, we reached a spot where the valley, turning abruptly to the left, afforded a certain shelter. Here I turned to look, and never shall I forget the scene that I witnessed. Thundering down the side of the hill, rushing, and roaring, and devastating in its course, came an immense shapeless mass of a dim hue, raising a sort of misty atmosphere round itself as it fell. The mountain, even to where we stood, shook under its descent; the valleys, and the precipices, and the caverns, echoed back the tremendous roar of its fall. Immense masses of rock rolled down before it, impelled by the violent pressure of the air which it occasioned; and long ere it reached them, the tall pines tottered and swayed as if writhing under the consciousness of approaching destruction, till at length it touched them, when one after another fell crashing and uprooted into its tremendous mass, and were hurled along with it down the side of the steep. Down, down it rushed, dazzling the eye and deafening the ear, and sweeping all before it, till, striking the bottom of the valley with a sound as if a thousand cannon had been discharged at once, it blocked up the whole pass, dispersing the stream in a cloud of mist, and shaking by the mere concussion a multitude of crags and rocks down from the summit of the mountain. Long after it fell, the hollow windings of the ravines prolonged its roar with many an echoing sound, dying slowly away till all again was silence, and the mist dispersing left the frowning destruction that the _lavange_ had caused exposed to the sight in all its full horrors.