“The same sound came to my ears. It was a distant, monotonous boom like rolling thunder. The ground actually shook under our feet.
“Only once had I heard a similar frightful sound, and that was once during an earthquake in Panama. But was this an earthquake?
“We sprang to our feet. Bill picked up a fire brand and held it high. But we could see nothing but a few faint stars overhead. It was the blackest kind of a night.
“For a space of thirty minutes the same dull roaring and trembling continued. Then came a dead silence.
“We had about given up interest in the matter, thinking it some inexplicable phenomenon of a tropical clime, when a sudden, startling thing happened.
“A terrific boom, and a swirling, rushing mass came whooping down through the lake basin. The next moment we were picked up as if in giant arms and carried clean to the summit of the eminence beyond us, and there we clung to palm trees, wet as drowned rats.”
CHAPTER II.
FRANK MAKES A DECISION.
The captain shifted his quid again and then smiled at the earnest look in Frank’s eyes. The young inventor was intensely interested.
“How did we get wet?” interrogated the captain. “Water of course. It was all before us. It had come down upon us with the force of a hurricane.
“We waited where we were until the light of day came. Then we beheld an appalling scene. A mighty expanse of water lay before us.