Suddenly a crashing, crackling, thundering roar rose above the storm, filling the air, and shaking the solid earth till it trembled beneath our horses’ feet, as if upheaved by a volcano.  Nearer and nearer the sound came, till it seemed that all the legions of darkness were unloosed in the forest, and were mowing down the great pines as the mower mows the grass with big scythe.  Then an awful, sweeping crash thundered directly at our backs, and turning round, as if to face a foe, my horse, who had borne the roar and the blinding flash till then, unmoved, paralyzed with dread, and panting for breath, sunk to the ground; while close at my side the Colonel, standing erect in his stirrups, his head uncovered to the pouring sky, cried out: 

‘THANK GOD, WE ARE SAVED!’

There—­not three hundred yards in our rear, had passed the TORNADO—­uprooting trees, prostrating dwellings, and sending many a soul to its last account, but sparing us for another day!  For thirty miles through the forest it had mowed a swath of two hundred feet, then moved on to stir the ocean to its briny depths.

With a full heart, I remounted, and turning my horse, pressed on in the rain.  We said not a word till a friendly opening pointed the way to a planter’s dwelling.  Then calling to me to follow, the Colonel dashed up the by-path which led to the mansion, and in five minutes we were warming our chilled limbs before the cheerful fire that roared and crackled on its broad hearth-stone.

The house was a large, old-fashioned frame building, square as a packing-box, and surrounded, as all country dwellings at the South are, by a broad, open piazza.  Our summons was answered by its owner, a well-to-do, substantial, middle-aged planter, wearing the ordinary homespun of the district, but evidently of a station in life much above the common ‘corn-crackers’ I had seen at the country meeting-house.  The Colonel was an acquaintance, and greeting us with great cordiality, our host led the way directly to the sitting-room.  There we found a bright, blazing fire, and a pair of bright, blazing eyes, the latter belonging to a blithesome young woman of about twenty, with a cheery face, and a half-rustic, half-cultivated air, whom our new friend introduced to us as his wife.

’I regret not having had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. S——­ before, but am very happy to meet her now,’ said the Colonel, with all the well-bred, gentlemanly ease that distinguished him.

‘The pleasure is mutual, Colonel J——­,’ replied the lady, ’but thirty miles in this wild country should not have made a neighbor so distant as you have been.’

’Business, madam, is at fault, as your husband knows.  I have much to do; and besides, all my connections are in the other direction—­with Charleston.’

’It’s a fact, Sally, the Colonel is the d——­st busy man in these parts.  Not content with a big plantation and three hundred niggers, he looks after all South-Carolina, and the rest of creation to boot,’ said our host.