Once sheltered, Walter and Ellen gazed out upon the raging tempest in bewildered amazement, not unmixed with awe.  Never had they beheld the elements so fearfully agitated as now!  Blacker than midnight were the pall-like clouds that “hung the heavens.”  Loud as thunder was the roaring of the wind.  Incessantly the vivid lightnings blazed forth in blinding flashes; while above all the mingled commotion of the storm strife, the bursting thunders boomed.  Like feathers in the breeze, great limbs of trees were wrenched from their places, and whirled, and twirled, and borne away.  The tough oaks were twisted from their stems, or pulled up by the roots, while the smaller trees were snapped off like brittle reeds.

“Terribly grand!” said Hamilton to his companion.

“A fearful display of God’s power!” responded Ellen.

“A mere breath of his omnipotence—­nothing more!”

For half an hour the tempest raged in violence, then its fury was spent, and soon after the clouds rolled away.  During its continuance, the wild passions of the savages were awed into quiet, and their hearts filled with other thoughts and emotions than those of vengeance and cruelty.  They were silent as the grave, and harmless as silent.

The party now found time to look about them.  Durant had manifested signs of life, but was evidently badly hurt.  Presently he opened his eyes, and stared about, but his glances were those of bewildered delirium.  A high fever was burning in his veins; its fires penetrated to the head, and, reveling amid the brain, unhinged reason, and let loose the fierce passions so long time grown strong and o’ermastering.

Who shall paint the darkness of a corrupt heart, when for years the basest feelings human nature is capable of experiencing have been nourished until more than mature?  It was more dreadful to listen to the ravings of Durant than to witness the fearful war of the elements.  The tempest just over, was nothing to the one that was struggling and out-breaking in his bosom.  We shall not attempt to record all the dark revelations he made of his own evil thoughts and deeds, as we would spare the reader’s feelings from the shock so revolting a record would produce.  In his delirium he raved of the past, and unbosomed his intentions for the future.  First he seemed to be enacting over the tragic scenes of the day.

“Tear away the fagots!” he cried.  “I say, tear them away!  Stupid blockheads! do you not know that I must have my revenge on the girl?  Scatter the fagots!  Gods! if she dies the heart’s blood of every dog of you shall be spilled!  I—­I must, I will have her alive!”

During the utterance of those words his voice, gestures, and expression of countenance were in keeping with the language itself, and truly horrible.  Suddenly a change came over his countenance; the dark lines of passion retreated, and an expression of timidity or fear came in their place.  He muttered incoherently for a time, and then, as if communing with himself, he spoke in a subdued voice of the last scene in his conscious life.  A few sentences were audible and connected, showing how his mind was affected by the tempest: