‘The road’s gone on each side of this house,’ cried Waverton, waving a hand to left and right. ‘We can’t go half a mile, let alone twelve miles. We’re cut off from everywhere. Even the road below’s under water.’
‘For that matter,’ Penderel added, determined to show Mr. Femm what sort of world he was living in, ‘this place may be under water soon or even buried. The hill’s crumbling on each side, and it looks as if something above here, a lake or a reservoir, has burst its banks. Listen to that.’ He held up his hand impressively. The roaring really did seem louder than ever. Penderel thought he could hear the distant crashing of rocks.
Mr. Femm retreated a step, his eyes two pin-points in a crumpled sheet of paper. Penderel hadn’t seen a man look so frightened for years. What an oddity!—dense at first, and then flying into a panic. A man so thin, with so little flesh and so much shining bone ought to be braver than that; he was almost a skeleton, and skeletons, jangling and defiant, are brave enough. It’s our flesh, Penderel told himself, the jellied-stuff that rots so easily, which quivers and creeps, goes goosey with fright; but our bones stand up and don’t give a damn. This fellow was a fraud.
Mr. Femm had now turned and gone hissing towards his sister. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked her. ‘They say there’s been a landslide on each side of us, and floods too. The lake has burst its banks. We are trapped. We shall have to go. Do you hear?’ His voice had almost risen to a scream.
She was now as quiet as he was noisy. She looked him up and down contemptuously, clasped her little fat hands in front of her, and said: ‘Yes, I heard. I’ve expected it after all this rain and rain and rain. It will all come tumbling down again. God is not mocked.’ She gloated over this, and looked at her brother triumphantly, her suety face alight with malice. ‘You’re afraid, Horace. You don’t believe in God. Oh, no! But you’re afraid to die. You don’t believe in His mercy, but now you can believe in His wrath.’ She looked at him steadily, and then when he opened his mouth to reply she went on again, more vehemently. ‘You’ve seen His anger in the sky. You’ve heard Him in the night. And you’re afraid. Where’s your mocking now?’ She stopped, and nobody spoke or stirred for a moment. ‘Well, your time hasn’t come yet. This house is safe enough. This has happened before, before you came back, Horace, and we were never touched.’ She turned her head. ‘Morgan, come here,’ she shrieked, and when he came towering above her, she screamed up at him: ‘You remember the great storm, when we were cut off once before, and there were floods and landslides and the road down there was all washed away? This house was safe then, wasn’t it?’
Morgan nodded and made a noise in his beard. Then he made a sweeping gesture to include the whole house, and pointed impressively to the floor.
‘Morgan remembers,’ cried Miss Femm. ‘He means that the house was safe because it stands on a great rock.’
He nodded his head affirmatively again, pointed to the back of the house, raised his finger, and then clenched his fist, grinning trollishly throughout the dumb show.
‘He means that this rock comes out at the back of the house and shields it,’ Miss Femm explained, ‘Morgan remembers the last time we had storms like these, when this was the only place left untouched. And so you see, Horace, we can stay where we are.’
Mr. Femm had now recovered himself. ‘It is obvious,’ he said, looking at Mrs. Waverton, ‘that you will have to remain here for the night. The misfortune is yours, not ours. I am afraid we can promise you very little.’