“’ It is I, Lieutenant Santierra,’ I stammered out, as if choked. ‘Open the door.’
“It came open slowly. The girl, holding a thin taper in her hand, seeing another man with me, began to back away before us slowly, shading the light with her hand. Her impassive white face looked ghostly. I followed behind General Robles. Her eyes were fixed on mine. I made a gesture of helplessness behind my chief’s back, trying at the same time to give a reassuring expression to my face. Neither of us three uttered a sound.
“We found ourselves in a room with bare floor and walls. There was a rough table and a couple of stools in it, nothing else whatever. An old woman with her grey hair hanging loose wrung her hands when we appeared. A peal of loud laughter resounded through the empty house, very amazing and weird. At this the old woman tried to get past us.
“‘Nobody to leave the room,’ said General Robles to me.
“I swung the door to, heard the latch click, and the laughter became faint in our ears.
“Before another word could be spoken in that room I was amazed by hearing the sound of distant thunder.
“I had carried in with me into the house a vivid impression of a beautiful, clear, moonlight night, without a speck of cloud in the sky. I could not believe my ears. Sent early abroad for my education, I was not familiar with the most dreaded natural phenomenon of my native land. I saw, with inexpressible astonishment, a look of terror in my chief’s eyes. Suddenly I felt giddy! The general staggered against me heavily; the girl seemed to reel in the middle of the room, the taper fell out of her hand and the light went out; a shrill cry of Misericordia! from the old woman pierced my ears. In the pitchy darkness I heard the plaster off the walls falling on The floor. It is a mercy there was no ceiling. Holding on to the latch of the door, I heard the grinding of the roof-tiles cease above my head. The shock was over.
“‘Out of the house! The door! Fly, Santierra, fly!’ howled the general. You know, senores, in our country the bravest are not ashamed of the fear an earthquake strikes into all the senses of man. One never gets used to it.
“Repeated experience only augments the mastery of that nameless terror.
“It was my first earthquake, and I was the calmest of them all. I understood that the crash outside was caused by the porch, with its wooden pillars and tiled roof projection, falling down. The next shock would destroy the house, maybe. That rumble as of thunder was approaching again. The general was rushing round the room, to find the door, perhaps. He made a noise as though he were trying to climb the walls, and I heard him distinctly invoke the names of several saints. ‘Out, out, Santierra!’ he yelled.