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Blacker than midnight were the pall-like clouds that "hung the heavens." Loud as thunder was the roaring of the wind. Incessantly the vivid lightnings blazed forth in blinding flashes; while above all the mingled commotion of the storm strife, the bursting thunders boomed. Like feathers in the breeze, great limbs of trees were wrenched from their places, and whirled, and twirled, and borne away.
While it went on, dark curtains hung pall-like over it as if to conceal the ceremony, and the ghoul howled in an awful deafening voice to stifle his cries.
On and on Jethou was gone, and bit by bit the long green and gold slopes of Herm were conquered, and its long white spear of sand ran out of the low white cloud. And still on, till all the outlying rocks and islands vanished, and where had been the glow and colour of life was nothing now but that strange pall-like cloud.
Gwynne wondered if he should ever shake off the pall-like memories of the past week: the testimony before the coroner, in which every word had to be weighed as carefully as if life instead of the honor of the worthless dead were at stake, the reporters from the less dignified of the British newspapers, and the American correspondents, two of whom dodged the vigilance of the servants, entered the Abbey by a window, and took snap shots of the lower rooms and of the coffins in the death-chamber; the painful scenes with the women of the family, who had descended in a body; the wearisome interview with the family solicitor, in the course of which he had learned that he was heir to little more than the entailed properties; which must be let in order to insure an income for his three unmarried aunts, Zeal's five girls, and himself; the hideous reiteration of "your lordship" by the obsequious servants, that reproduced in his mind the slow deep notes of the passing bell, tolled in the village for his grandfather and cousin.
She put out the lamp and lighted her candle and set it where it would be screened from his face; and where the shadow of the chamber was heaviest, into that shadow she retired and in it she sat with furtive look to see whether he observed her. A pall-like stillness deepened about the bed where he lay.
We all listened, and loud above the roaring of the flames, which were filling the sky with showers of sparks, and dark, pall-like clouds of smoke, we heard the shrill tones of a trumpet. "What is the meaning of that blast?" I asked. "It means that the soldiers are marching to the scene of the conflagration," rejoined Smith, promptly.
The silence in the room was deathly, the heat intense, heavy, pall-like. Outside, the rain fell monotonously, and, mingling with its beating, she heard the croaking of innumerable frogs. Neither Ralston nor Monck stirred a finger. They were watching closely with bated breath.
Both dashed off at a rapid pace, through a drenching storm, with such a pall-like darkness that they could not see each other. After an hour's ride the negro halted, and informed Clotelle that he must leave her, and return with the horses, but that she was with friends. He then gave a whistle, and for a moment held his breath.
Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, were in various stations about; and there was the couch, too the bridal couch of an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony, with a pall-like canopy above.
We were borne on towards the principal gate of the cemetery, and here the effect was most striking. We left the outer darkness, and stepped into an area of light; beyond the belt of cypress and of yew there was so brilliant an illumination that it threw its glowing reflection on the clouds that hung pall-like over the whole city.
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