THREE:Now the lightning seems nearer. Hark, that was thunder; soft, but real. At last the air moves; there is a breeze, and the girls come out on the gallants' arms to drink it in. As they lift their brows and sigh their comfort the lightning grows brighter, the thunder comes more promptly and louder, and the maidens flinch and half scream, yet linger for one more draft of the blessed coolness. Suddenly an inverted tree of blinding light branches down the sky, and the thunder crashes in one's very ears; the couples recoil into a group at the door, the lightning again fills heaven and earth, it shows the bending trees far afield, and the thunders peal at each other as if here were all Vicksburg and Port Hudson, with Porter and Farragut going by. So for a space; then the wind drops to a zephyr, and though the sky still blazes and crashes, and flames and roars, the house purrs with content under the sweet strokings of the rain.It did not take a long time to prepare Frank's wardrobe for the journey. His grandmother had an impression that he was going on a whaling voyage, as her brother had gone on one more than sixty years before. She proposed to give him two heavy jackets, a dozen pairs of woollen stockings, and a tarpaulin hat, and was sure he would need them. She[Pg 22] was undeceived when the difference between a sea voyage of to-day and one of half a century ago was explained to her. The housemaid said he would not need any thick clothing if he was going to Japan, as it was close to Jerusalem, and it was very hot there. She thought Japan was a seaport of Palestine, but Mary made it clear to her that Japan and Jaffa were not one and the same place. When satisfied on this point, she expressed the hope that the white bears and elephants wouldn't eat the poor boy up, and that the natives wouldn't roast him, as they did a missionary from her town when she was a little girl. "And, sure," she added, "he won't want any clothes at all, at all, there, as the horrid natives don't wear nothing except a little cocoanut ile which they rubs on their skins."

THREE:But in this attempt he was unexpectedly thwarted. The Clockwork man recovered himself; he ran straight back to the wicket and then stopped dead. The umpire was in the act of replacing the bails, for the wicket had been put down, and, fast as this eccentric cricketer had run in the first place, he had not been quick enough to reach the crease in time. By all the rules of the game, and beyond the shadow of doubt, he had been "run out." He now regarded the stumps meditatively, with[Pg 36] a finger jerked swiftly against his nose, as though recognising a former state of consciousness. And then, with a swift movement, he took up his position in readiness to receive the ball.