It was evident that some tremendous manifestation of the power of the Invisible was at hand; but none of us moved. Some unaccountable fascination held us riveted to the spot. We were all spell-bound. What, indeed, was the use of flight? Where could we have hid ourselves from Him, to whom the darkness is as the noonday, and whose power pervades all space? The water in the bay now began to ebb suddenly, until it retired about twenty paces, leaving a broad white sandy beach where before there had been but a narrow stripe of pebbles. In another moment it again rushed in with a loud shaling noise—I coin the word for the sound—in bores nearly ten feet high, and thundered against the rocks, with a violence as if it had been the swell of the everlasting deep, hove by a storm against their iron ribs; and flashing up in white smoke all round us and over us. The very next moment, a huge mass of the grey cliff above was disruptured, and thundering with increasing bounds, pitched right over our heads (distinctly visible between us and the sky), a pistol-shot into the sea, where it dashed its shadow in the water into fragments, as it fell with a flash like fire; rotten branches and sand showered down in all directions; the dew was shaken like a fall of diamonds from the trees, the schooner's crew shouted, birds and beasts screamed and bellowed, and the mules we rode started and reared as the earth quaked beneath their feet, and yelled forth the most unearthly sounds that ever issued from the throat of quadruped. The shallop at the wharf was hove bodily forward on the crest of a tremendous sea, like a moving mountain, and then dashed on the shore; the schooner first dragged her anchors by the sudden and tumultuous ebb, and then drove with inconceivable violence against the wharf, where I thought she would have been stranded; but the retiring surge again floated her back, and the next minute she was fast drifting out of the bay. She had parted both cables.
We hastened home, where we found every thing in great confusion. The house was filled with dust, the walls and roof cracked in many places, and the wooden frames of the windows in two instances forced from their embrasures by the sinking of the walls. The field negroes were crowding round in great dismay, and the house servants were no less so; but, amidst all this hubbub—lo!—the beautiful fountain was once more bubbling, and hissing, and splashing in its rocky basin, and amongst the leaves, as cheerily as if it had never intermitted at all.
"The old one has slaked his thirst. You see we have got back our purling stream again, Mr Hudson," said Listado.
The ladies immediately retired, their nerves having been desperately shaken; and I for one was right glad to follow their example. Before we males retired, however, we had a long discussion, as to the possibility or impossibility of the suspicious chap we had seen at the bay being Adderfang; who at the moment ought to have been in prison at Havanna. De Walden continued thoroughly persuaded of his identity; but, at the same time, could not conceal his lingering kindness for him. So we finally determined to let the villain alone, if it really, against all probability, were he, so far as we were concerned.
On the following forenoon, we once more took the road to Havanna. On starting, it came to be my lot, purely by accident, of course, to assist Miss Hudson to mount her mule, and in the action it was equally natural to squeeze her hand a little. I thought the squeeze was returned; and "hilloa!" said I to myself again.
The evening following our return Mrs Hudson gave a small party; and, recollecting the transaction of the former day, as I took my partner's hand in the dance, for by another accident Miss Hudson was the lady, I thought I would see whether I was mistaken or not; so I tried the telegraph again, and gave her fair hand a gentle but significant pressure this time. By heaven! it was now returned beyond all doubt,—and I started, and blushed, and fidgeted, as if the whole room had seen the squeeze, while a thrill of pleasure—no, not pleasure; of—of—phoo, what does it signify; but it was something very funny and delightful at any rate. I looked at the fair little woman, and, as if to make assurance doubly sure, I saw the eloquent blood mantling in her cheek, and tinging her lovely neck like the early dawn in June.
"Oh Lord! I am a done man; quite finished for ever and aye."
"Why, Brail, what the deuce are you after?" shouted Listado, as he thundered against me in a furious poussette. "You are in every body's way, and your own too; mind, man, mind."
With that he again floundered past me with his partner, a bouncing girl, the daughter of an American merchant of the place, contriving in their complex twirlifications not only to tread heavily on my toes with his own hoofs, but to hop his partner repeatedly over the same unfortunate members.
Nothing worth recording happened after this event for three weeks; or, rather, I thought nothing unconnected with it of any the smallest importance, until Mr Hudson one morning at breakfast asked Listado, who had just entered, and who was a very frequent visitor, if he had ever heard any thing more of Adderfang?