with sudden fierce gusts shook the pine-trees into shuddering anxiety,—­the red slit in the sky closed, and a gleam of forked lightning leaped athwart the driving darkness.  An appalling crash of thunder followed almost instantaneously, its deep boom vibrating in sullenly grand echoes on all sides of the Pass, and then—­with a swirling, hissing rush of rain—­the unbound hurricane burst forth alive and furious.  On, on! splitting huge boughs and flinging them aside like straws, swelling the rivers into riotous floods that swept hither and thither, carrying with them masses of rock and stone and tons of loosened snow—­on, on! with pitiless force and destructive haste, the tempest rolled, thundered, and shrieked its way through Dariel.  As the night darkened and the clamor of the conflicting elements grew more sustained and violent, a sudden sweet sound floated softly through the turbulent air—­the slow, measured tolling of a bell.  To and fro, to and fro, the silvery chime swung with mild distinctness—­it was the vesper-bell ringing in the Monastery of Lars far up among the crags crowning the ravine.  There the wind roared and blustered its loudest; it whirled round and round the quaint castellated building, battering the gates and moving their heavy iron hinges to a most dolorous groaning; it flung rattling hailstones at the narrow windows, and raged and howled at every corner and through every crevice; while snaky twists of lightning played threateningly over the tall iron Cross that surmounted the roof, as though bent on striking it down and splitting open the firm old walls it guarded.  All was war and tumult without:—­but within, a tranquil peace prevailed, enhanced by the grave murmur of organ music; men’s voices mingling together in mellow unison chanted the Magnificat, and the uplifted steady harmony of the grand old anthem rose triumphantly above the noise of the storm.  The monks who inhabited this mountain eyrie, once a fortress, now a religious refuge, were assembled in their little chapel—­a sort of grotto roughly hewn out of the natural rock.  Fifteen in number, they stood in rows of three abreast, their white woollen robes touching the ground, their white cowls thrown back, and their dark faces and flashing eyes turned devoutly toward the altar whereon blazed in strange and solitary brilliancy a Cross of Fire.  At the first glance it was easy to see that they were a peculiar Community devoted to some peculiar form of worship, for their costume was totally different in character and detail from any such as are worn by the various religious fraternities of the Greek, Roman, or Armenian faith, and one especial feature of their outward appearance served as a distinctly marked sign of their severance from all known monastic orders—­this was the absence of the disfiguring tonsure.  They were all fine-looking men seemingly in the prime of life, and they intoned the Magnificat not drowsily or droningly, but with a rich tunefulness and warmth of utterance