Britomarte hurried into the house and began to let down the windows and close the shutters, hoping and praying all the time that Justin and Judith might return before the storm should burst. When she had securely fastened up the house, as it was now pitch dark, she lighted the lamp and sat down to wait for the return of her friends. The thunder rolled and broke, crash upon crash, like the explosion and fall of a world overhead, at the same instant that the lightning shot like shafts of fire through every crevice in the house, and the rain came down as if the “windows of heaven” had been opened for another flood. “Heaven protect them!” exclaimed Britomarte, clasping her hands and thinking of her friends. Then she suddenly started up and ran to the door to listen for their coming. As she got there she heard rapid steps and hurried speech, followed immediately by loud knocks. She tore the door open, and they rushed in, Justin, Judith and—the pirate captain—followed by the raving storm. Justin, exerting all his great strength, closed and barred the door against the wind and then turned to Britomarte and whispered hurriedly: “Dear sister, go into your parlor. I will join you there presently and explain.” Britomarte followed his advice, and went back to the parlor, attended by Judith. “Judith,” as soon as they had reached the room and closed the door, “tell me how Mr. Rosenthal came to bring that man here to-night? I am glad that he has done so, but I wish to know how he happened to do it.” A blinding flash of lightning that shot arrows of fire through every crack and seam of the house, and a deafening crash of thunder, like the explosion of a planet overhead, interrupted Judith in her answer. Instead of replying, she muttered a pater and told her beads. And it was not till all was temporarily silent again, and Miss Conyers had repeated her question, that Judith answered: “Divil a bit iv me knows at all, at all. Sure I was running back to the house as fast as me two heels could fetch me, to get out iv the storm, when I fell over thim both, close to the door here. And nivir a worrd was spoken anyther side. And now, ma’am, wid your lave, I’ll just go and change me clothes, for divil’s a dhry thread is on me at all, at all, wid the rain that came down by bucket fulls.” “Go at once, Judith. Hurry, or you may catch cold.” “And so I will hurry, ma’am. Sure it’s a fray shower bath I’ve had entirely—Glory be to Moses!” This last exclamation was struck from Judith by a thunderbolt so much more tremendous than anything which had preceded it, that there is no simile to be found for it in heaven or on earth. “That must have struck very near us,” said Britomarte, as the thunder rolled down the abyss of space and died away. “Mary, Star iv the Say! * * *S’int Pater, pray for us sinners!” * * * muttered Judith, invoking all the saints she could think of in an emergency.