“Hush!” called Brush from the rear; “I hear a curious sound.”
“What does it seem to be?”
“It is impossible to tell; let’s stop for a moment.”
As the three animals stood motionless, the strange noise was audible. It was a deep, hollow roar rapidly increasing in volume and intensity, and resembled the warning of a tornado or cyclone advancing through the forest. The animals, as is the case at such times, were nervous and frightened. They elevated their heads, pricked their ears, snuffed the air and the animal of the parson trembled with terror.
The three believed that something in the nature of a cyclone was approaching, or it might be a cloudburst several miles away, whose deluge had swollen the stream into a rushing torrent that would overwhelm them where they stood, caught inextricably in a trap.
The terrifying roar, however, was neither in front nor at the rear, but above them,––over their heads! From the first warning to the end was but a few seconds. 175 The sound increased with appalling power and every eye was instinctively turned upward.
In the dim obscurity they saw a dark mass of rock, weighing hundreds of tons, descending like a prodigious meteor, hurled from the heavens. It had been loosened on the mountain crest a half mile above, and was plunging downward with inconceivable momentum. Striking some obstruction, it rebounded like a rubber ball against the opposite side of the gorge, then recoiled, still diving downward, oscillating like a pendulum from wall to wall, whirling with increasing speed until it crashed to the bottom of the gorge with a shock so terrific that the earth and mountain trembled.
Landing in the stream, the water was flung like bird shot right and left, stinging the faces of the men fifty feet distant. They sat awed and silent until Ruggles spoke:
“Now if that stone had hit one of us on the head it would have hurt.”
“Probably it would,” replied the captain, who had difficulty in quieting his horse; “at any rate, I hope no more of them will fall till we are out of the way.”