But as the thunder rolled on farther and farther, seemingly rebounding from cloud to cloud, I recovered my self-possession, and in mortal fear rushed to the side of the prostrate girl. I was trembling all over like a coward as I bent down to examine her. Had the lightning struck her when she fell so abruptly to the ground? Had life forever forsaken that magnificent form, those divinest limbs? Would those heavy eyelashes never again be raised from those dazzling eyes? Breathlessly I moved aside the dusky hair covering her like a pall. Breathlessly I placed my hand on her heart; a strange shiver and spark quivered through it to my heart. Yet she was chill as ice and motionless as a stone. "She is dead, she is dead!" I moaned; and the pang for one I had never known exceeded everything I had felt in my life.
"You mistake, signor," some one said close beside me; and on looking up I saw the mother intently gazing down on her senseless child. "My Tolla is not hurt," she cried: "she only fell when you left off playing the tarantella; she will arise as soon as you go on."
Pointing to the lightning still flickering and darting overhead, I cried, "But you are risking your lives for some fantastic whim, some wild superstition of yours. You are mad to brave such a storm! You expose your child to undoubted peril that you may ward off some illusory evil. Let me bear her to the inn, and follow me thither." And I was going to lift the senseless form in my arms when the woman sternly prevented me.
In vain I argued, pleaded, reasoned with her. She only shook her head and cried piteously, "Give her music, for the love of the dear Madonna!" And the girls, who by this time had plucked up courage and gathered round us, echoed as with one voice, "Musica! Musica!"
What was I to do? I could not drag them away by force, and certainly, for aught I knew, she might have been in equal danger from the poison or the storm, wherever we were. As for peril to myself, I cared not. I was in a devil of a mood, and all the pent-up bitter passion of my soul seemed to find a vent and safety-valve in that stupendous commotion of the elements.
So I searched for my instrument on the ground, and now noticed, to my astonishment, that although the storm had swept away from us, the whole ruin was nevertheless brightly illuminated. On looking up I saw the topmost branches of a solitary stone-pine one dazzle of flames. Rising straight on high from a gap in the wall which its roots had shattered, it looked a colossal chandelier on which the lightning had kindled a thousand tapers. There was not a breath of air, not a drop of rain, so that the flames burned clear and steady as under cover of a mighty dome.