CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
"The Norther." We hurried after Don Cosme towards the _ante-sala_, both myself and my companions ignorant of this new object of dread.
When we emerged from the stairway the scene that hailed us was one of terrific sublimity.

Earth and heaven had undergone a sudden and convulsive change.

The face of nature, but a moment since gay with summer smiles, was now hideously distorted.

The sky had changed suddenly from its blue and sunny brightness to an aspect dark and portentous.
Along the north-west a vast volume of black vapour rolled up over the Sierra Madre, and rested upon the peaks of the mountains.

From this, ragged masses, parting in fantastic forms and groupings, floated off against the concavity of the sky as though the demons of the storm were breaking up from an angry council.