Where was it? What had it done? was the instant thought. Kalliope turned as pale as death; the girls came screaming and thronging out of their workshop, the men from their sheds, the women from the cottages, as all thronged to the more open space beyond the buildings where they could see, while Miss Mohun found herself clasped by her trembling niece.
Others were rushing up from the wharf. One moment’s glance showed all familiar with the place that a projecting point, forming a sort of cusp in the curve of the bay, had gone, and it lay, a great shattered mass, fragments spreading far and wide, having crashed through the roof of a stable that stood below.
There was a general crowding forward to the spot, and crying and exclamation, and a shouting of ‘All right’ from above and below. Had any one come down with it? A double horror seized Miss Mohun as she remembered that her cousin was to inspect those parts that very afternoon.
She caught at the arm of a man and demanded, ‘Was any one up there?’
‘Master’s there, and some gentlemen; but they hain’t brought down with it,’ said the man. ‘Don’t be afraid, miss. Thank the Lord, no one was under the rock—horses even out at work.’
‘Thank God, indeed!’ exclaimed Miss Mohun, daring now to look up, and seeing, not very distinctly, some figures of men, who, however, were too high up and keeping too far from the dangerous broken edge for recognition.
Room was made for the two ladies, by the men who knew Miss Mohun, to push forward, so as to have a clearer view of the broken wall and roof of the stable, and the great ruddy blue and white veined mass of limestone rock, turf, and bush adhering to what had been the top.
There was a moment’s silence through the crowd, a kind of awe at the spectacle and the possibilities that had been mercifully averted.
Then one of the men said—
‘That was how it was. I saw one of them above—not Stebbing—No—coming out to the brow; and after this last frost, not a doubt but that must have been enough to bring it down.’