Then one great drop of rain fell like molten lead on the pavement, then a second and a third quicker, faster, and thicker, until down it crashed in a perfect deluge.

It did not wait to rain; it fell in floods--in great, slanting sheets of water, an is the very floodgates of heaven had opened for a second deluge.

No one ever remembered to have seen such torrents fall, and the populace fled before it in wildest dismay.

In five minutes, every fire, from one extremity of London to the other, was quenched in the very blackness of darkness, and on that night the deepest gloom and terror reigned throughout the city.

It was clear the hand of an avenging Deity was in this, and He who had rained down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah had not lost His might.