He felt the dogs huddle closer to him.

Suddenly the dense, black vault overhead split asunder to a blue-white, dazzling streak of lightning.

The whole valley lay vividly clear and luminously bright in his sight.

Upreared, vast and magnificent, the stone bridge glimmered like some grand god of storm in the lightning's fire.

Then all flashed black again--blacker than pitch--a thick, impenetrable coal-blackness.
And there came a ripping, crashing report.