Round About the Carpathians | Page 9

us in dense masses, throwing the near mountains into deep shadow, while the plain far beneath was flooded with bright sunshine.
The effect, however, was transitory, for the dark shadow soon engulfed the distant plain, blurring the fair scene even while we looked upon it. The change was something marvellous, so sudden and so complete. Up to this time the air had been still, and very hot; but suddenly a fierce wind came upon us with a hoarse roar--almost like the waves of the sea--up the valley and over the hill-top it came, right down upon us, tearing at the forest-trees. The branches, in all the full foliage of leafy June, swayed to and fro as the wind went roaring and shrieking down the hillside; the next moment the earth shook with the clap of a terrific burst of thunder.
The horses stood still and shuddered in their harness, and it was with difficulty they were made to go on. It was evident the storm was right over us, for now succeeded flash upon flash of forked lightning, with thunder-claps that were instantaneous and unceasing.
At the same time the windows of heaven were opened upon us, or rather the sluices of heaven it seemed to me; for the rain descended in sheets, not streams, of water. Without any adventitious difficulties, the road was as objectionable as a road could be; deep ruts alternated with now a bare bit of rock strewn with treacherous loose stones, and now a sharp curve with an ugly slant towards the precipice.
About half an hour after the storm first broke upon us it had become night, indeed it was so dark that we could hardly see a pace in advance. The repeated flashes of lightning helped us to make out our position from time to time, and we trusted to the horses mainly to get us along in the safe middle course. At moments when the heavens were lit up, I could see the swaying branches of the fir-trees high above us battling with the wind, for we were still in the forest. The sound of many waters around on every side forcibly impressed us with the notion that we must be washed away--a result not by any means improbable, for the road we traversed was little better than a watercourse.
I have experienced storms in Norway, and in the Swiss and Austrian Alps, but I never remember anything to equal this outburst of the elements.
To stop still or to go forward was almost equally difficult, but we struggled on somehow at the rate, I should think, of a mile and a half in the hour. The horses were thoroughly demoralised, as one says of defeated troops, and stumbled recklessly at every obstacle. The driver was a stupid fellow, without an ounce of pluck in his composition, and declared more than once that he would not go on, preferring to stop under such shelter as the trees afforded. We were of another mind, and insisted on his pushing on. One of us walked at the horses' heads, and thus we splashed and blundered on for three mortal hours, wishing all the time that we had slept at Milanovacz. The route became so much worse that I declared we must have missed the track. We were apparently in a deep gully, traversed by a mountain torrent hardly a foot below the level of our road; but the Servian said he knew we were "all right," and that we should come directly to a house where we could get shelter.
He had hardly spoken when H---- descried some lights not very far ahead, and in less than ten minutes we came alongside a good-sized hut, which turned out to be the welcome wine-shop the driver had promised us. Here was a roof anyhow, so we entered, hoping for supper and beds in the wayside inn. All our host could produce was a very good bottle of Servian "black" wine and some coarse bread of the country, so stale that we could hardly break it. This wine, which is almost as black as ink, comes from Negotin, lower down the Danube, and is rather a celebrated vintage I was informed.
It was only in my untravelled mind that the idea of "beds" existed at all. H---- knew better than to expect anything of the kind. All we could do was to examine the place we were in with reference to passing the night. The floor of the room consisted of hard stamped clay, which from the drippings of our garments had become damp and slightly adhesive to the tread. The furniture consisted of a few rough stools and three tables. There was no question of any other apartment, there being only a dark hole in the rear sacred to the family, into which