A Prairie Courtship by Harold Bindloss

The air had grown very still again when Florence leaned on the veranda balustrade, gazing into the darkness, which was now intense. The brief shower of heavy rain had wet the grass, and waves of warm moisture charged with an odor like that of a hothouse seemed to flow about her and recede again, leaving her almost shivering in her gauzy dress, for between whiles it was by contrast strangely cold. She could hear Hunter calling to the horses, which apparently broke away from him now and then in short, savage rushes, but she could see nothing of him or them. Presently the sharp cries of one of the hired men broke in, and Florence, who felt her nerves tingling, became conscious of an unpleasant tension.

Then for a second, or part of it, the figures of moving men and beasts became visible, etched hard and black against an overwhelming brightness, as a blaze of lightning smote the prairie. The glare of it was dazzling, and when it vanished Florence was left gripping the balustrade, bewildered and wrapped in an intolerable darkness. After that a drumming of hoofs and a hoarse cry broke upon her ears, but both were drowned and lost in a deafening crash of thunder. It rolled far back into the distance in great reverberations, and while her light skirt fluttered about her in an icy draught another sound emerged from them as they died away.