After that I cleared off. Descending through a fertile valley, from the
bottom there loomed upwards higher mountains, looking black and dismal,
with clouds black and dismal keeping them company. We had now to cross
the undulating ground still separating us from Pu-peng. The early
portion of the ground was something like Clifton Downs, something like
Dartmoor. The country was poor, and the people barely put themselves out
to boil water for chance travelers.
The storm broke suddenly. From the shelter of a hollowed rock I watched
it all.
Over the submerged plain and the bare hills the blackness was as of
night. Red earth without the sun looked brown, brown looked black, and
the trees, swaying helplessly before the raging fury of the gale, seemed
struck by death. Lightning continued its electrical vividity of
fork-like greenish white among the heavy clouds, drooping threateningly
from the hill-tops to the darkened valleys below, laden still with their
waiting, unshed deluge. Through a narrow incision in the cruel clouds
the sun peeped out with a nervous timidity, and a tiny patch over
yonder, in a flash illuminated with gold and purple, across which the
lightning danced in heavenly rivalry, displayed the magic touch of the
Artist of the skies.
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