The rule of the darkness now became universal.

Densely and rapidly it overspread the whole city with startling suddenness; as if the fearful destiny now working its fulfilment in Rome had forced the external appearances of the night into harmony with its own woe-boding nature.
Then, as the young Goth still lingered at his post of observation, the long, low, tremulous, absorbing roll of thunder afar off became grandly audible.

It seemed to proceed from a distance almost incalculable; to be sounding from its cradle in the frozen north; to be journeying about its ice-girdled chambers in the lonely poles.

It deepened rather than interrupted the dreary, mysterious stillness of the atmosphere.

The lightning, too, had a summer softness in its noiseless and frequent gleam.