Moreover, there was a storm. All over the world there was a storm that
puzzled meteorology, a moment's gale that left the atmosphere in a
state of wild swaygog, rains, tornadoes, depressions, irregularities
for weeks. News came of it from all the quarters of the earth.
All over China, for example, that land of cherished graves, there was
a dust-storm, dust leaped into the air. A kind of earthquake shook
Europe--an earthquake that seemed to have at heart the peculiar
interests of Mr. Algernon Ashton; everywhere it cracked mausoleums and
shivered the pavements of cathedrals, swished the flower-beds of
cemeteries, and tossed tombstones aside. A crematorium in Texas blew
up. The sea was greatly agitated, and the beautiful harbour of Sydney,
in Australia, was seen to be littered with sharks floating upside down
in manifest distress....
And all about the world a sound was heard like the sound of a trumpet
instantly cut short.