THE CATACLYSM
Two hours later two men and a girl gazed out from the plateau of
Devil's Hill. The whole earth it seemed was a raging sea of fire. Once
more the forests were ablaze in every direction. The blistering
tongues of fire had licked up the heavy rain, and were again roaring
destruction over the land.
Far as the eye could reach the lurid pall of smoke was spread out,
rolling upward and onward, borne upon the bosom of the gale. In its
midst, and through it, the merciless flames leapt up and up. The
booming of falling timbers, and the roar of the flames smote painfully
upon the hearts of the watchers. It was a spectacle to crush every
earthly hope. It was a sight so painful as to drive the mind of man
distracted. In all their lives these people had never imagined such a
terror. In all their lives they could never witness such again.
They stood there silent and awed. They stood there with eyes straining
and ear-drums throbbing with the din of the battle. Their horses were
roaming at will and the still form of Aunt Mercy was at their feet.
There was no shelter. There was no hope. Only they knew that where
they stood was safety, at least, from the fire below.
Presently Joan knelt at her aunt's side and studied her ashen features
in the ruddy light. The woman's unconsciousness had remained through
all that journey. Or was she dead? Joan could not make up her mind.
Once, as she knelt, she reeled and nearly fell across that still body.
And when, recovering herself, she looked up at the men she saw that
they were braced, with feet apart, supporting each other. Then, in the
roar of the storm she heard Buck's voice shouting in the Padre's ear.
"Guess--ther's more to come yet," he said with a profound
significance.
She saw the Padre's nod, and she wondered at the fresh danger he saw
ahead.
Buck turned and looked out over the desolate plateau with troubled
eyes. She followed his gaze. Strangely she had little fear, even with
that trouble in her lover's eyes.
The plateau was desperately gloomy. It was hot, too, up there,
terribly hot. But Joan had no thought for that except that she
associated it with the hot wind blowing up from below. Her observation
was narrowed to a complete dependence on Buck. He was her hope, her
only hope.
Suddenly she saw him reel. Then, in a moment, she saw that both men
were down on hands and knees, and, almost at the instant, she,
herself, was hurled flat upon the ground beside the body of her aunt.
The earth was rocking, and now she understood more fully her lover's
trouble. Her courage slowly began to ebb. She fought against it, but
slowly a terror of that dreadful hill crept up in her heart, and she
longed to flee anywhere from it--anywhere but down into that caldron
of fire below. But the thought was impossible. Death was on every hand
beyond that hill, and the hill itself was--quaking.
Now Buck was speaking again.
"We'll have to git som'ere from here," he said.
The Padre answered him--
"Where?"
It was an admission of the elder man's weakness. Buck must guide. The
girl's eyes remained upon her lover's face; she was awaiting his
reply. She understood, had always known it, that all human help for
her must come from him.
Her suspense was almost breathless.
"There's shelter by the lake," Buck said, after a long pause. "We can
get to leeward of the rock, an'--it's near the head of that path
droppin' to the creek. The creek seems better than anywher'
else--after this."
His manner was decided, but his words offered poor enough comfort.
The Padre agreed, and, at once, they moved across to Joan. For the
moment the earth was still again. Its convulsive shudder had passed.
Joan struggled to her feet, but her increasing terror left her
clinging to the man she loved. The Padre silently gathered Mercy into
his arms, and the journey across the plateau began.
But as they moved away the subterranean forces attacked again. Again
came that awful rocking, and shaking, which left them struggling for a
foothold. Twice they were driven to their knees, only to stagger on as
the convulsions lessened. It was a nightmare of nervous tension. Every
step of the journey was fraught with danger, and every moment it
seemed as though the hill must fall beneath them to a crumbling
wreckage.
With heart-sick apprehension Joan watched the growing form of the
great rock, which formed the source of the lake, as it loomed out of
the smoke-laden dusk. It was so high, so sheer. What if it fell,
wrecked with those dreadful earth quakings? But her terror found no
voice, no protest. She would not add to the burden of these men. The
rock passed behind them, and her relief was intense as the shadow was
swallowed up again in the gloom. Then a further relief came to her as
the edge of the plateau was reached, and the Padre set his burden down
at the head of the narrow path which suggested a possible escape to
the creek below.
She threw herself beside her aunt, and heard Buck speaking again to
his friend.
"Stop right here with the women," he said. "I'm goin' around that
lake--seems to me we need to get a peek at it."
Joan understood something of what he feared. She remembered the
weirdness of that suspended lake, and thought with a shudder of the
dreadful earth quakings. So she watched him go with heart well-nigh
breaking.
Buck moved cautiously away into the gloom. He knew the lake shore
well. The evident volcanic origin of it might well answer many
questions and doubts in his mind. Its rugged shore offered almost
painful difficulties with the, now, incessant quakings below. But he
struggled on till he came to the eminence he sought. Here he took up a
position, lying on his stomach so that he had a wide view of the
surface of the wind-swept water.
He remained for a long while watching, watching, and striving to
digest the signs he beheld. They were many, and alarming. But their
full meaning was difficult to his untutored mind.
Here it was that the Padre ultimately found him. He had been gone so
long that the elder man's uneasiness for his safety had sent him in
search.
"What d'you make of it, Buck?" he demanded, as he came up, his
apprehensions finding no place in his manner.
Buck displayed no surprise. He did not even turn his head.
"The fires are hotting. The water's nigh boiling. There's goin' to be
a mighty bust-up."
The Padre looked out across the water.
"There's fire around us, fire above us, and now--fire under us. We've
got to choose which we're going to face, Buck--quick."
The Padre's voice was steady. His feelings were under perfect control.
Buck laughed grimly.
"Ther's fire we know, an' fire we don't. Guess we best take the fire
we know."
They continued to gaze out across the lake in silence after that. Then
the Padre spoke again.
"What about the horses?" he asked.
The question seemed to trouble Buck, for he suddenly caught his
breath. But, in a moment, his answer came with decision.
"Guess they must take their chances," he said. "Same as we have to. I
hate to leave him, but Caesar's got sense."
"Yes."
The Padre's eyes were fixed upon one spot on the surface of the water.
It was quite plain, even in that light, that a seething turmoil was
going on just beneath it. He pointed at the place, but went on talking
of the other things in his mind.
"Say, you best take this pocketbook. We may get separated before the
night's out. It's half the farm money. You see--ther's no telling," he
ended up vaguely.
For one instant Buck removed his eyes from the surface of the lake to
glance at the snow-white head of his friend. Then he reached out and
took the pocketbook.
"Maybe Joan'll need it, anyway," he said, and thrust it in his pocket.
"We must----Say, git busy! Look!"
Buck's quick eyes had suddenly caught sight of a fresh disturbance in
the water. Of a sudden the whole surface of the lake seemed to be
rising in a great commotion. And as he finished speaking two terrific
detonations roared up from somewhere directly beneath them.
In an instant both men were on their feet and racing in headlong
flight for the point where they had left the women.
"Get Joan!" shouted the Padre from behind. He was less swift of foot
than Buck. "Get Joan! I'll see to the other."
Buck reached the girl's side. She had heard the explosions of the
underworld and stood shaking with terror.
"We're up agin it, Joan," he cried. And before the panic-stricken girl
could reply she was in his strong young arms speeding for the downward
path, which was their only hope.
"But the Padre! Aunt Mercy!" cried Joan, in a sudden recollection.
"They're comin' behind. He'll see to her----God in heaven!"
A deafening roar, a hundred times greater than the first explosions,
came from directly beneath the man's feet. The air was full of it. To
the fugitives it was as if the whole world had suddenly been riven
asunder. For one flashing moment it seemed to Buck that he had been
struck with fearful force from somewhere behind him, and as the blow
fell he was hurled headlong down the precipitous path.
A confused, painful sense of cruel buffeting left him only
half-conscious. There was a roar in his ears like the bombardment of
unearthly artillery. It filled his brain to the exclusion of all else,
while he hugged the girl close in his arms with some instinct of
saving her, and shielding her from the cruel blows with his own body.
Beyond that he had practically no sensation. Beyond that he had no
realization whatever. They were falling, falling, and every limb in
his body seemed to find the obstructions with deadly certainty. How
far, how long they were falling, whither the awful journey was
carrying them, these things passed from him utterly.
Then, abruptly, all sensation ceased. The limit of endurance had been
reached. For him, at least, the battle for life seemed ended. The
greater forces might contest in bitter rage. Element might war with
element, till the whole face of the world was changed; for Providence,
in a belated mercy, had suspended animation, and spared these two poor
atoms of humanity a further witness of a conflict of forces beyond
their finite understanding.