There was a line of molten gold above it, too dazzling to look at.
It was at that moment that we had our first earthquake. There had been many earlier ones in other parts of the world. I was thrown violently to the ground and the sideways motion was so strong that I tried to find something on the bare rocky surface to hang on to. By the time I was able to raise myself to a sitting posture, a great blinding segment of a sphere had appeared in the sky.
A great blinding segment of a sphere appeared in the sky. I realized that it was the moon travelling toward the earth at a terrific velocity.
Of course I realized immediately that it was the moon, which must now be approaching the earth at a terrific velocity. Why the reflected light from it was so dazzling I have never been able to determine. As far as I know, in other parts of the world persons advantageously placed were able to observe it without difficulty, almost to the moment of impact. The only possible explanation seems to be that there was a vast amount of light reflected from the snow-covered surface of the ground, and even that explanation is not quite satisfactory. The fact remains that neither Jim nor I was able to observe the surface of the moon as it passed above us. It would have been as easy to look at the sun.
From the moment of this first earthquake, time in the ordinary sense of the word had no meaning for us. We stayed as close to each other and the plane as we could. There was now no distinction between night and day. The sky was a burnished copper color, when it was not being traversed by the brilliantly blazing moon, and, each time the moon appeared over our rocky horizon, it nearly filled the heavens.
I think we ate from time to time. I know we became extra-ordinarily thirsty and were continually drinking. I assume that the wind exhausted all the moisture in the air around us, and the air exhausted it from our bodies. I do not even know whether that is a possible explanation, but I give it for what it is worth. I am not quite sure what we would have done for water if there had not been an abundance of snow in our rocky valley. We knew enough not to try to eat it, but we melted it over our little primus stove.
We could tell when the moon was going to appear by the increasing intensity of the earthquakes. They became nearly continuous, and we adjusted ourselves to them as people do to the motion of a ship. We would not have been able to accept them so philosophically if we had not been on top of a mountain where there was nothing to fall on us.