At this moment the adjutant--general of the forces, Colonel
F----, of the Coldstream Guards, in his tandem, drawn by two sprightly
blood bays, with his servant, a light boy, mounted Creole fashion on the
leader, was coming up in my wake at a spot where the road sank into a
hollow, and was traversed by a watercourse already running knee deep,
although dry as a bone but the minute before.
I was now drenched to the skin, the water pouring out in cascades from
both sides of the vehicle, when just as I reached the top of the opposite
bank, there was a flash of lightning so vivid, accompanied by an explosion
so loud and tremendous, that my horse, trembling from stem to stem, stood
dead still; the dusky youth by my side jumped out, and buried his snout in
the mud, like a porker in Spain nuzzling for acorns, and I felt more
queerish than I would willingly have confessed to. I could have knelt and
prayed. The noise of the thunder was a sharp ear--piercing crash, as if
the whole vault of heaven had been made of glass, and had been shivered at
a blow by the hand of the Almighty.
It was, I am sure, twenty seconds before the usual roar and rumbling
reverberation of the report from the hills, and among the clouds, was
heard.
I drove on, and arrived just in time to dress for dinner, but I did not
learn till next day, that the flash which paralysed me, had struck dead
the Colonel's servant and leading horse, as he ascended the bank of the
ravine, by this time so much swollen, that the body of the lad was washed
off the road into the neighbouring gully, where it was found, when the
waters subsided, entirely covered with sand.
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