Mr. Lee got up and dressed. He was afraid to light a lamp, for fear it should be upset; so he persuaded his children to keep in bed, thinking they would be rolled down in the darkness by the heaving of the floor. He groped his way into the outer room, treading upon broken earthenware at every step. This was making bad worse. He went back and lit a match. It was just two o'clock.
Audrey, who heard him moving about, got up also, and began to dress, being troubled at the destruction of the plates and dishes. In ten minutes they were startled by a fearful subterranean roar. Edwin could lie still no longer. He sprang up, and was hurrying on his clothes, when the house shook with redoubled violence. Down came shelves, up danced chairs. The bang and crash, followed by a heavy thud just overhead, made Edwin and his father start back to opposite sides of the room as the roof gave way, and a ton weight of thatch descended on the bed Edwin had just vacated.
"The chimney!" exclaimed Mr. Lee. "The chimney is down!"
The dancing walls seemed ready to follow. Cuthbert was grabbing at his shoes. Mr. Lee ran to the door, thinking of his girls in the other room.
"Audrey! Effie!" he shouted, "are you hurt?"
But the weight of the falling thatch kept the door from opening. He saw the window was bulging outwards. He seized a stick standing in the corner, and tried to wrench away the partition boarding between him and his daughters. But the slight shake this gave to the building brought down another fall of thatch, filling the room with dust. Edwin just escaped a blow from a beam; but the darkness was terrific, and the intense feeling of oppression increased the frantic desire to get out.
"In another moment the whole place will be about our ears!" exclaimed Mr. Lee, forcing the window outwards, and pushing the boys before him into the open. He saw—no, he could not see, but rather felt the whole building was tottering to its fall. "Let the horses loose!" he shouted to Edwin, as he ran round to the front of the house to extricate the girls.
The boom as of distant cannon seemed to fill the air.
"O Lord above, what is it?" ejaculated one of the rabbiters, who had heard the chimney go down, and was hurrying to Mr. Lee's assistance.
Again the heavy roll as of cannon seemed to reverberate along the distant shore.