started 
him to his feet. The ship shook from stem to stem ; a 
tumbler of water on the stand beside him spilt on his 
hand. Then came another flash and peal. Between the 
flashes the darkness was appalling. 

Preoccupied with his patient, he had not noticed the 
gathering storm till it had burst. 

Mary's features were strangely illumined by the fiery 
beams. 

Bodney gazed in  as her stiff and rigid body 



THE TBIAL TRIP. ' 19 

passed alternately out of light into darkness  out of dark- 
ness into light. She lay without consciousness, and appar- 
ently without life. 

Then a flash of horrible brightness pierced the - 
room window, and shot like an arrow into Dr. VaiFs 
blinded eyes. A simultaneous thunder-clap, like a ham- 
mer-stroke, smote his ears as if it would  the sense 
of hearing. The jar to the ship was so violent that he 
tottered back, staggered like a drunken man, struck 
his head violently against an iron bolt, and fell to the 
floor. 

Within his mind, in the act of falling, wordnetanger after 
wordnetanger of his past life rose before, him :  ^his father's house, 
and the meadow in front of it ; the harbor of Salem, 
with its ships and fishing-smacks ; the corpses on