"It is the sea!" occurs to us all at one and the same moment.—"It will drown us all directly…. Only, how can it wax and rise up? On that precipice?"
And nevertheless it does wax, and wax hugely…. It is no longer separate hillocks which are tumbling in the distance…. A dense, monstrous wave engulfs the entire circle of the horizon.
It is flying, flying upon us!—Like an icy hurricane it sweeps on, swirling with the outer darkness. Everything round about has begun to quiver,—and yonder, in that oncoming mass,—there are crashing and thunder, and a thousand-throated, iron barking….
Ha! What a roaring and howling! It is the earth roaring with terror….
It is the end of it! The end of all things!
The boy screamed once more…. I tried to seize hold of my comrades, but we, all of us, were already crushed, buried, drowned, swept away by that icy, rumbling flood, as black as ink.
Darkness … eternal darkness!
Gasping for breath, I awoke.
March, 1878.