None of the houses at the lower end had fallen, but several were bulging forward and appeared to be deserted. And here already the predatory instinct was at work. Linton caught the arm of a filthy-looking tramp just as he raised an iron bar to smash the plate glass window of a jeweller's shop. He hurled the thief aside, then grasping Zenobia's hand again he dragged her forward, making for the nearest bridge.
But once again their way was barred. From a great crack in the roadway a fountain—a geyser—of the yellow, steaming water suddenly leaped into the air. To avoid it they were compelled to make another circuit. They hurried down some narrow streets and reached the open space in front of the theatre. Fighting their way through excited and gesticulating groups of people, they passed the hospital, and, turning to the right, reached the front of the Grand Pump Room Hotel. Limping and enfeebled invalids, who could scarcely move unaided, were streaming from the the building, appealing eagerly for guidance to a way of escape from the perils that surrounded them. Tremulous but unheeded questions were heard on every side as Linton and Zenobia crossed the road and reached the Colonnade. To their right, from the doorways of the Grand Pump Room itself, another flood of tinted steaming water was pouring rapidly over the broad pavement and stealing into the Abbey Church. By keeping close to the opposite wall they escaped the stream, and leaving the great Church, which so far seemed intact, upon their right, they soon reached the space in front of the Guildhall. Only a little distance and they would gain the bridge!
"This way!" cried Zenobia, as Linton, who knew nothing of the town, stopped in hesitation. But as she spoke, the pavement, barely ten yards away, bulged suddenly, then split apart, and with a violent rush another geyser burst into the street. They drew back just in time, and hurried breathlessly towards the Station Road. On their left rose the tall building of the Empire Hotel; behind them was the Abbey. A sudden shout impelled them to look back. A third geyser had opened in the middle of the roadway, and in an instant columns of steaming water were spouting high into the air.
"Quick! Quick!" urged Linton. His voice was scarcely audible, for as they approached the river a mighty roar was coming from the weir, dominating the multitudinous sounds of terror which filled the air on every side.
In this appalling crisis earth and air and water seemed united as in a ruthless conspiracy for the destruction of humanity. In the presence of these vast, mysterious, and irresistible forces, man, the boasted master, lord of creation, was subdued and helpless. The effect produced on the inhabitants of the city was that with which the struggling atoms of the race, accustomed only to a calm and ordered system, ever encounter nature in her moods of unfamiliar violence. In tempests of the deep, in the awful hurricane, when winds and seas mix and contend in a Titanic conflict, nature ignores the puppets tossing on the helpless ship, or half drowned on the surging raft. What is man in presence of the waterspout that towers from the ocean to the clouds? How shall he face the unfathomable whirlpool that yawns for the frail boat in which he is compelled to trust? Whither shall we fly, when, as now, the earth vomits forth from unimaginable caverns the scalding water floods that she has stored within her depths throughout uncounted centuries? None can stand unmoved when the hills smoke and the earth trembles; when darkness, a darkness that may be felt, spreads in a sinister and all-pervading veil over a world that seems abandoned to the powers of evil? Powdery ashes were falling everywhere upon the doomed city. From Lansdown a vast vaporous column, a dreadful blend of water, bitumen, and sulphur, rose high into the clouds. As the great column branched and spread, assuming the form of an enormous pine-tree, the darkness deepened, save where, above the hill itself, red-coloured flames slashed hither and thither through the cloud at frequent intervals. Terrific explosions accompanied these manifestations; and Linton, as he half carried Zenobia towards the river, was possessed with the fear that the great hill might be completely riven and pour forth streams of boiling water or of lava, that would not only submerge the town itself but destroy all life within a radius of many miles.
Conceivably, indeed, it might be the beginning of the end—the end, at least, of England; for what were the British Isles but the summit of some vast mountain whose foundations were buried deep in the unfathomed sea? It had been forgotten that Great Britain with Ireland and its Giant's Causeway, afforded incontrovertible evidence of volcanic origin. These islands, with the Hebrides, the Faroe Islets, and, finally, Iceland, in fact constituted a vast volcanic chain, with Mount Hecla as its seismic terminus—a focus more active than Vesuvius itself. And here, at the other end of the chain, was Bath, where for thousands of years the waters of Sul had maintained a disregarded warning of that inevitable convulsion which, at last and in the fulness of time, had come to pass.
In the midst of these flashing thoughts and fears that darted through his brain, Linton was possessed with the conviction that their only possible hope of safety lay in crossing the river, the surging roar of which each moment became more audible and threatening. Others in great numbers were animated with the same belief. Linton and Zenobia, indeed, found themselves involved in a madly-rushing crowd of panic-stricken men and women. Swept this way and that, they were in danger of being hurled to the ground and trodden underfoot by thousands of hurrying fellow creatures bent on self-preservation and on nothing else.
Still supporting Zenobia with one arm and fighting his way forward step by step, Linton presently managed to turn the angle of the tall hotel. On their right the river, swollen enormously by the inrush from the hidden springs, had almost reached the level of the parapet. Boiling floods had poured, and still poured, into the Avon, blending with the normal stream; and the soul-subduing terror of the scene was augmented by the great clouds of steam that rose from the surface of the hurtling river.
With desperate exertions, still supporting his half-fainting companion, Linton reached the turning towards the bridge. The narrow entrance was choked with a dense and struggling crowd, through which half a dozen men, lashing frantically at rearing horses, strove recklessly to force a passage. Screams and oaths blended with the angry roaring of the weir. The struggling people swayed hither and thither in dense compact masses, while a body of firemen from the station close at hand, seized the heads of several horses and forced them back to give the foot passengers some slight chance of escape.
Individual efforts were futile in the midst of this confused and fighting crowd. By the impetus and weight of numbers, however, Linton and Zenobia, holding closely to each other, were swept as in a human eddy on to the bridge itself. The same contributory force of numbers, close packed between the windows of the shops, carried them rapidly towards the other side. Again and again there was a crash of glass as the terrific pressure forced in one or other of the windows; but far more ominous was the angry, roaring voice of the invisible river beneath them. Rising higher and yet higher every moment, it buffeted the bridge with unceasing and increasing violence, the torrent whirling round the piers and buttresses, fiercely impatient for greater destruction, as it tore upon its way towards the thundering weir.