quivered with delight; his soul at certain moments, when his practical
faculty was uncalled upon, felt as if high in the roaring space with the
Berserkers of the storm.

Suddenly his horse, in spite of the wall of wind at his back, stood on
his hind legs, then swerved so fiercely that his rider was all but
unseated. A palm had literally leaped from the earth, sprawled across
the road not a foot in front of the horse. The terrified brute tore
across the cane-field, and Alexander made no attempt to stop him, for,
although the rain was now falling as if the sea had come in on the high
back of the wind, he believed himself to be on the Stevens plantation.
The negro village was not yet deserted, and he rode to the west side of
the mill and shouted his warning to the blacks crouching there. On every
estate was a great bell, hung in an open stone belfry, and never to be
rung except to give warning of riot, flood, fire, or hurricane. One of
the blacks obeyed Alexander's peremptory command to ring this bell, and,
as it was under the lee of the mill, reached it in a moment. As
Alexander urged his horse out into the storm again, he heard the rapid
agitated clang of the bell mingle discordantly with the bass of the wind
and the piercing rattle of the giant's castinets. He rode on through the
cane-field, although if the horse stumbled and injured itself, he would
have to lie on his face till the storm was over. But there was a greater
danger in the avenue; he was close enough to see and hear tree after
tree go down, or their necks wrenched and the great green heads rush
through the air with a roar of their own, their long glittering leaves
extended before them as if in supplication.

The Lytton plantation was next on his way, and Alexander rode straight
for the house, as the mills and village lay far to the left. The
hurricane shutters on the sides encountering the storm were already