Waiting on an attack is a hard trial for mortal nerves.  I am not ashamed to confess that in those minutes my courage was little to boast of.  I envied Ringan his ease, and Bertrand his light cheerfulness, and Donaldson his unshaken gravity, and especially I envied Shalah his godlike calm.  But most of all I envied Elspeth the courage which could know desperate fear and never show it.  Most likely I did myself some wrong.  Most likely my own face was firm enough, but, if it were, ’twas a poor clue to the brain behind it.  I fell to wondering about Grey still travelling in the woods.  Was there any hope for him?  Was there hope, indeed, for any one of us penned in a wooden palisade fifty miles from aid, a handful against an army?

Presently in the lowering silence came the scream of a hawk.

An uncommon sound, half croak, half cry, which only hill dwellers know, but ’tis an eery noise in the wilderness.  It came again, less near, and a third time from a great distance.  I thought it queer, for a hawk does not scream twice in the same hour.  I looked at Shalah, who stood by the gate, every sinew in his body taut with expectation.  He caught my eye.

“That hawk never flew on wings,” he said.

Then an owl hooted, and from near at hand came the cough of a deer.  The thicket was alive with life, which mimicked the wild things of the woods.

Then came a sound which drowned all others.  From the inky sky descended a jagged line of light, and in the same second the crash of the thunder broke.  Never have I seen such a storm.  Down in the Tidewater we had thunderstorms in plenty during the summer-time, but they growled and passed and scarce ruffled the even blue of the sky.  But here it looked as if we had found the home of the lightnings, where all the thunderbolts were forged.  It blazed around us like a steady fire.  By a miracle the palisade was not struck, but I heard a rending and splintering in the forest where tall trees had met their doom.  The noise deafened me, and confused my senses.  Out of the loophole I could see the glade that sloped down to the Gap, and it was as bright as if it had been high noonday.  The clumps of fern and grass stood out yellow and staring against the inky background of the trees.  I remember I noted a rabbit run confusedly into the open, and then at a fresh flare of lightning scamper back.

Something was crouching and shivering at my side.  I found it was Elspeth, whose courage was no match for the terrors of the heavens.  She snuggled against me for companionship, and hid her face in the sleeve of my coat.

Suddenly came a cry from Shalah on my left.  He pointed his hand to the glade, and in it I saw a man running.  A new burst of light sprang up, for some dry tindery creepers had caught fire, and were blazing to heaven.  It lit a stumbling figure which I saw was Grey, and behind him was a lithe Indian running on his trail.

“Open the gate,” I cried, and I got my musket in the loophole.