accompanied by a stillness that was oppressive. He could no longer
distinguish a movement in the tops of the cedars and banskian pine
beyond the corral. In the corral itself he caught now and then the
shadowy, flitting movement of the wolves. He did not hear Celie
when she came out of her room. So intently was he straining his
eyes to penetrate the thickening pall of gloom that he was
unconscious of her presence until she stood close at his side.
There was something in the awesome darkening of the world that
brought them closer in that moment, and without speaking Philip
found her hand and held it in his own. They heard then a low
whispering sound--a sound that came creeping up out of the end of
the world like a living thing; a whisper so vast that, after a
little, it seemed to fill the universe, growing louder and louder
until it was no longer a whisper but a moaning, shrieking wail. It
was appalling as the first blast of it swept over the cabin. No
other place in the world is there storm like the storm that sweeps
over the Great Barren; no other place in the world where storm is
filled with such a moaning, shrieking tumult of VOICE. It was not
new to Philip. He had heard it when it seemed to him that ten
thousand little children were crying under the rolling and
twisting onrush of the clouds; he had heard it when it seemed to
him the darkness was filled with an army of laughing, shrieking
madmen--storm out of which rose piercing human shrieks and the
sobbing grief of women's voices. It had driven people mad. Through
the long dark night of winter, when for five months they caught no
glimpse of the sun, even the little brown Eskimos went keskwao and
destroyed themselves because of the madness that was in that
storm.

And now it swept over the cabin, and in Celie's throat there rose