midnight
Upon the awed silence there suddenly fell a deep growl of thunder . The startled people lifted their heads . With almost an instantaneousness , the heavens darkened . It might well have been a moonless midnight , so dark did it suddenly become . The thunders roared and cannonaded , while fierce lightnings , like liquid fires , raced earthwards down the blackened heavens . No one , native of the land , or foreigner , had ever known thunder or lightning such as now broke upon them . For days afterwards men were as deaf as though born thus , stunned by the thunder ; and scores lost their sight from the lightning 's flash , never to recover it again .