“Who has so much as an idea?” said the wind, dropping suddenly, like a tiger preparing to spring. “The earth is full of mighty forces, which not one of us knows anything about.”
There came another booming sound. Two-Legs rose. He looked at the mountain in the middle of the plain and saw that the column of smoke had turned into a great black cloud, which grew and spread faster than his eyes could follow it.
Now, it masked the sun; now, the waves in the river foamed and met the waves of the sea, which came dashing over the land; now, the wind rose, in a moment, into a furious gale.
And, before Two-Legs could look round, it was suddenly black as midnight.
He saw, just as the light disappeared, that something dropped from the sky, but could not see what it was. He groped his way to the stable, where his horse stood tethered, jumped on its back and darted away from the region where danger lay. The beast was mortally frightened, like himself, and ran for its life.
He could not see his hand before his eyes, but thought he heard a wailing and crying through the storm, all over the plain, wherever he came. He was able to tell a voice here and there, but he merely rushed on and on, until his horse dropped under him.
Then he ran as fast as his legs could carry him, stumbled and fell and got up again and ran and ran, while the cries rang out around him, when they were not drowned in the roar of the storm and the thundering noise from the mountain.
He was struck by a stone on the back of the head and felt the blood trickle down his neck. His foot trod in something that was like boiling water. He drew it back with a cry and ran the other way. At last, he lost consciousness and had not himself the least idea how he had managed to escape. When he recovered, he was lying on a knoll, right at the end of the plain. Round about him lay half a score of people of his family, bewildered and exhausted like himself. They did not speak, but gazed at one another in dismay and wept, with trembling hands.
3
Two-Legs shaded his brows with his hand and looked out over the plain.