"It is a pity," she said, "that we cannot pass through this gateway into paradise without descending to earth again."
"I don't believe you are half as tired of life as you say," he answered with an impatient movement of his head. "You may not shrink from death as I do, or enjoy life so keenly, but isn't it a good thing to be alive to-night? Isn't it fine to be a mile or so above the rest of humanity and the deadly conventionalities? Aren't you glad you came?"
She did not answer, but presently said dreamily, "Suppose that plain was the sea."
"It isn't hard to suppose," he answered. "I have seen the Pacific when it looked just so."
"Oh, no," she said quickly. "Nothing is like the sea but itself. You will never persuade me that I love the mountains so well. And the plains,—just imagine if all that gray green silver were gray blue, with here and there a gathering crest of foam, racing to break in spray about these mountains—"
"Why, look," he said, drawing her a little to one side, "there is your liquid blue, with its white crest moving toward us. Could the real sea look more wonderful than that? It is blotting out everything. Now it recedes,—was it not real?"
She started to her feet. "This is a very strange night," she said irrelevantly, in a rather strained voice. "Listen,—and see how many birds are flying about us; I never saw them fly so at night. What does it mean?"
They stood together, looking at each other with startled faces. The whole mountain, all the mountains, seemed to be alive and trembling under them. Overhead thousands of birds wheeled and screamed with terror in their mingled outcries. The little creeping things scuttled away up the mountain. The silver-blue wave widened and spread over the plain from north to south, and the air was full of a dull, terrible roar, as if the fountains of the great deep had broken up, and a thousand white-crested waves rushed toward the hapless city before them. They covered it, and with a wild jangle of bells, faintly audible over the tumult, it sank out of sight, all the gleaming, dancing lights disappearing in an instant. The white crests came on and broke about the mountains, and receded and came on again with a deafening roar. Then the crust of the earth between the mountain range and the spot where the city had been, seemed to crack like a bit of dried orange peel, and the flood rushed over the abyss, and there arose a blinding steam that hid the whole scene below, and ascending circled the mountain peaks in mist.
All about them on the mountain-side rose the cries of terrified wild things, and along the narrow pathway into the park a herd of cattle and horses rushed and disappeared among the aspens that trembled as never before. The collie, scenting their presence, came and crouched whining at their feet, and a bird fell exhausted into the woman's arms. She closed her hands over it, unconsciously giving it the protection none could give them, and in the fog moved toward the figure of her companion. His arm closed about her convulsively.
"Shall we go farther up the mountain?" he asked.