"What's this place called, Mas'r Harry?" said Tom, interrupting my
reverie. "You did tell me, but I've forgotten."
"La Guayra!"
"Humph!" ejaculated Tom. "Why can't they call places by some name in
plain English?"
But the various strange sights and sounds soon silenced Tom's tongue,
and, tired out at last with a long walk, we went to the house that had
been recommended to me, and after partaking of coffee--the best I ever
remember to have drunk--I sought my room, Tom insisting upon sleeping on
the floor in the same chamber, and my last waking recollections were of
the pungent fumes of tobacco, and the tinkle, tinkle, twang of a guitar
beneath my window.
I must have been asleep about three hours, and I was dreaming of having
found gold enough to load a vessel homeward bound, when I was wakened by
some one shaking me violently, and as I started up I became aware of a
deafening noise, a choking sensation, as of dust rising in a cloud, and
the voice of Tom Bulk.
"Mas'r Harry--Mas'r Harry! Wacken up, will you?"
"What's the matter?" I gasped, springing out of bed, but only to reel
and stagger about before falling heavily.
"That's just how it served me," said Tom. "Kneel down, Mas'r Harry,
same as I do. The house is as drunk as a fiddler, and the floor's going
just like the deck of a ship."
"Where are you?" I cried, trying to collect my scattered faculties,
for, awakened so suddenly from a deep sleep, I was terribly confused.
"Oh, I'm here!" said Tom. "Give's your hand. But, I say, Mas'r Harry,
what's it mean? Do all the houses get dancing like this here every
night, because, if so, I'll sleep in the fields. There it goes again!
Soap and soda! what a row!"
Tom might well exclaim, for with the house rocking frightfully, now came
from outside the peal as of a thousand thunders, accompanied by the
clang of bell, the crash of falling walls, the sharp cracking and
splitting of woodwork, and the yelling and shrieking of people running
to and fro.
"So this ere's a native storm, Mas'r Harry?" shouted Tom to me during a
pause.
"No!" I shouted in answer, as with a shiver of dread I worded the
fearful suspicion that had flashed across my brain. "No, Tom, it's an
earthquake!"
"Is that all?" grumbled Tom. "Well, it might have come in the daytime,
and not when folks were tired. But I thought earthquakes swallowed you
up."
"Here, for Heaven's sake help me at this door, Tom!" I shouted, "or we
shall be crushed to death. Here, push--hard!"
But our efforts were vain, for just then came another shock, and one
side of the room split open from floor to ceiling.
"The window--the window, Tom!" I shrieked. And then, thoroughly roused
to our danger, we both made for the casement, reaching it just as, with
a noise like thunder, down went the whole building, when it seemed to me
that I had been struck a violent blow, and the next instant I was
struggling amongst broken wood, dust, and plaster, fighting fiercely to
escape; for there was a horrible dread upon me that at the next throe of
the earthquake we should be buried alive far down in the bowels of the
earth.