'What are you whining about?' said Ugo, contemptuously, 'who fears numbers! Let them come, though they were as many, as the Signor's castle could hold; I would shew the knaves what fighting is.For you--I would lay you quietly in a dry ditch, where you might peep out, and see me put the rogues to flight.--Who talks of fear!'
Bertrand replied, with an horrible oath, that he did not like such jesting, and a violent altercation ensued, which was, at length, silenced by the thunder, whose deep volley was heard afar, rolling onward till it burst over their heads in sounds, that seemed to shake the earth to its centre.The ruffians paused, and looked upon each other.Between the boles of the trees, the blue lightning flashed and quivered along the ground, while, as Emily looked under the boughs, the mountains beyond, frequently appeared to be clothed in livid flame.At this moment, perhaps, she felt less fear of the storm, than did either of her companions, for other terrors occupied her mind.
The men now rested under an enormous chesnut-tree, and fixed their pikes in the ground, at some distance, on the iron points of which Emily repeatedly observed the lightning play, and then glide down them into the earth.
'I would we were well in the Signor's castle!' said Bertrand, 'I know not why he should send us on this business.Hark! how it rattles above, there! I could almost find in my heart to turn priest, and pray.Ugo, hast got a rosary?'
'No,' replied Ugo, 'I leave it to cowards like thee, to carry rosaries--I, carry a sword.'
'And much good may it do thee in fighting against the storm!' said Bertrand.
Another peal, which was reverberated in tremendous echoes among the mountains, silenced them for a moment.As it rolled away, Ugo proposed going on.'We are only losing time here,' said he, 'for the thick boughs of the woods will shelter us as well as this chesnut-tree.'
They again led the mules forward, between the boles of the trees, and over pathless grass, that concealed their high knotted roots.The rising wind was now heard contending with the thunder, as it rushed furiously among the branches above, and brightened the red flame of the torch, which threw a stronger light forward among the woods, and shewed their gloomy recesses to be suitable resorts for the wolves, of which Ugo had formerly spoken.
At length, the strength of the wind seemed to drive the storm before it, for the thunder rolled away into distance, and was only faintly heard.After travelling through the woods for nearly an hour, during which the elements seemed to have returned to repose, the travellers, gradually ascending from the glen, found themselves upon the open brow of a mountain, with a wide valley, extending in misty moon-light, at their feet, and above, the blue sky, trembling through the few thin clouds, that lingered after the storm, and were sinking slowly to the verge of the horizon.
Emily's spirits, now that she had quitted the woods, began to revive;for she considered, that, if these men had received an order to destroy her, they would probably have executed their barbarous purpose in the solitary wild, from whence they had just emerged, where the deed would have been shrouded from every human eye.