But there was very little time to look for shelter now, for the mountain storm was on him, and over him, and all around him, before he fairly realized his danger--with a roaring and thundering as if all of heaven’s artillery had been drawn into action at once, with lightning and rain and wind all hustling and bustling around him, as if the gods had doomed his insect life to extermination, and had called out all their forces to execute the order. Insect; ay, so he felt himself to be. What but an insect when compared with the awful majesty of this storm? Still, insect-like, and with all the insect tenacity of life, he labored on, clutching at every root and shrub in his path, sometimes lying flat on his face and clinging to the very earth; sometimes thrown down and whirled over and over by the violence of the wind, only to crawl painfully upward again as soon as he could obtain a foothold. So he climbed on, stopping for shelter wherever he could find a bush or projecting rock, only to struggle on again after he had got his breath. And so the day passed and the darkness came to increase his misery and danger--not slowly, or with any faint premonitions of a change, but suddenly and completely, as if all the light of the universe had been extinguished at once. There seemed to be no twilight on this gloomy mountainside, and the darkness of midnight came down and infolded him as completely as if he were buried in a cloud, and then came fright and despair. He had long since lost the path, and could only struggle on a foot at a time, as he could feel his way ahead of him. Still he struggled upward. At last in his despair he stopped, and turning his back to a stone, tried to rest. He was numb and cold, and so completely exhausted that it seemed impossible to struggle longer. Would this black night never pass, or this storm cease, he wondered? As yet the storm had abated nothing of its violence, but roared and thundered and tore at him, as if it raged at his daring to maintain his feeble life, and was determined to wrest it from him. He was going down now, but whether he had crossed the ridge of the mountain, or was going down the path he came, he did not know. He only knew that the storm was at his back, and that it required a greater effort to keep his footing. He hardly realized that he was wounded and bleeding; but weak and wounded as he was, he fully realized the necessity of continued exertion; and so he struggled on, fighting hard and stubbornly for his life, as only brave men fight in the face of danger that seems impossible to surmount, and when they regard death as inevitable. Morning at last, thank God: and ah, how fervent and heartfelt were those thanks, for with the early dawn there came a break in the black clouds overhead; and as suddenly as the storm had overtaken him, it passed away, rumbling and growling sullenly, as if angry that his life had lasted in spite of its awful rage.