Chapter Thirty.
An Apparition!
“Goodness gracious me!” exclaimed Mrs Major Negus in accents of genuine terror, “the world’s coming to an end!” and she sank down in a heap on the ground, close to the door of the general room, where she had been standing uncertain whether to go out or in.
There was ample reason for the good lady’s consternation, for danger seemed staring her in the face in either direction.
On the one hand, the flood in the valley appeared approaching as if to swallow up the hut and all its belongings; while, on the other, the deafening noise of the water pouring down from the cliff above on to the roof made everybody feel impelled to quit the house.
Mary Llewellyn, the stewardess, generally a quiet and retiring person, was driven into a fit of hysterics by the concatenation of horrors that all at once surrounded them.
As for the children, they shared the fright of their elders, Florry clinging convulsively to Kate, who had dropped on her knees and was praying in the corner—believing really that the last supreme moment was at hand.
The men, too—they had been hastily called together the moment the dangerous predicament of the roof was noticed, and had begun to knock together a sort of wooden shield to interpose between the cliff and the top of the house, so that the water might rim over it in the fashion of a spout—stopped in their task with one accord, staring as if bewildered at each other the moment the terrible black snow began to fall from the sombre pall-like clouds which hung over the creek. This was immediately after the cascade of water came down the cliff; and so frightened were they, that not one of them uttered a word, nor did Mr McCarthy, who had summoned them together, urge them on with their work. All remained spell-bound and tongue-tied.
“It air orfull,” said Mr Lathrope, drawing a deep breath, and looking up at the sky as if to peer into its mysteries. “I guess I never seed such a fall before—no, nor nobody else in the land of the living!”