But now the threatening storm broke suddenly on that dark place of the earth; and it seemed to Oriana’s troubled spirit that the wrath of heaven was poured upon her benighted race.  Peal after peal resounded in quick succession, and reverberated from the distant kills; while flashes of forked lightning followed one another rapidly, and dispelled, for a moment, the unnatural darkness.  The young Indian clung trembling and terrified to her companion, and hid her face on his shoulder, to shut out the fearful scene, while Henrich spoke to her words of comfort and encouragement, and at length succeeded in calming her agitation.  The rain poured down in torrents but so dense was the foliage that hung over Oriana and her companion that it could not penetrate their place of refuge; and they remained awaiting its cessation, and watching the curling smoke, that seemed to die away as the falling torrent extinguished the fire.  But as it disappeared, another cloud arose near the same spot; and wider and fiercer flames sprang up, that defied the rain, and continued to burn with more and more strength.  Whence could they arise?  Surely the wigwams were on fire!

Henrich communicated this fear to Oriana, and they arose and hurried together towards the village, where an appalling scene met their eyes.  In front of Terah’s dwelling were the smoldering remains of the sacrificial fire, on which—­still upheld by the stake to which he had been bound—­the burnt and, blackened form of a man was visible; while close by the ashes lay a woman, so motionless that she seemed as totally deprived of life as the wretched victim himself, and a child was reclining on her shoulder, whose faint wailing cry showed that it yet lived and suffered.

None heeded the melancholy group; for the warriors, whose wild songs and frantic dances had been interrupted by the sudden violence of the storm, were all now engaged in fruitless efforts to extinguish the flames that were rapidly consuming the lodge of Terah.  The lightning had struck it, and ignited its roof of reeds; and so rapidly had the whole dwelling become a prey to the dreadful element, that even the removal of the dying sage had been despaired of.  But Jyanough, who had been a silent spectator of all the previous scene of cruelty, was not to be daunted by the smoke and flame that burst through the entrance, and drove from the chamber of death all the attendants of the sufferer.  Boldly he rushed into Terah’s dwelling; and, just as Henrich and Oriana entered the open space in front of it, they beheld him issuing forth, blackened with smoke and scorched with fire, and bending beneath the weight of his uncle’s corpse.

Yes; Terah was already a corpse!  All the charms and incantations of the Powows bad failed to banish the disease that was sent to summon him away.  All the treasure that had been destroyed, and the precious life-blood that had been spilled to propitiate false deities, could not for one moment arrest the fiat of the true ‘Master of life,’ or detain the spirit which was recalled by ‘Him who gave it’ That spirit had passed away amidst the noise of the tempest; and when Henrich sprang forward, and assisted his friend to lay the body gently on the earth, they saw that the spark of life had fled!