As the words left his lips the solid earth began to heave and rock.
At the first heave Hugh leaped from his horse, which screamed aloud andfled away, and gripped hold of Grey Dick. At the second, the multitudebroke out into wild cries, prayers and blasphemies, and rushed this wayand that. At the third, which came quite slowly and was the greatest ofthem all, the long stand of timber bent its flags toward him as thoughin salute, then, with a slow, grinding crash, fell over, entanglingall within it beneath its ruin. Also in the city beyond, houses, wholestreets of them, gabled churches and tall towers, sank to the earth,while where they had been rose up wreathed columns of dust. To the souththe sea became agitated. Spouts of foam appeared upon its smooth face;it drew back from the land, revealing the slime of ages and embeddedtherein long-forgotten wrecks. It heaped itself up like a mountain,then, with a swift and dreadful motion, advanced again in one vast wave.
In an instant all that multitude were in full flight.
Hugh and Dick fled like the rest, and with them David, though whitherthey went they knew not.
All they knew was that the ground leapt and quivered beneath their feet,while behind them came the horrible, seething hiss of water on the crestof which men were tossed up and down like bits of floating wood.
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