Holding hands, the girl and the boy ran to the shore, leaving the others to watch the great spectacle from the doorstep. And thus all stood, marvelling like every living creature whose eyes followed it down that long river. But only the judge could partly grasp the greatness of the event; only he could partly realize what it meant to the West and the world. Yet every one waited and watched as if spellbound, till the last of those first victorious banners of blue smoke thus unfurled over the conquered wilderness, had waved slowly out of sight around the great river's majestic bend.
This had brought a momentary forgetfulness of the strange look of the heavens and the earth; but the consciousness of it now rushed back with increased alarm. There were still no clouds to be seen anywhere, no visible signs of an approaching storm; but the thick veil of yellowish vapor was fast drawing an unnatural twilight over the noonday. Through this awful dimness the sun was shining faintly, like a great globe of heated copper, thus shedding a strange light, even more alarming than the sinister darkness.
Every soul in the wilderness must now have shrunk, shuddering and appalled, before this unmistakable approach of some frightful convulsion of nature. The people of Cedar House, like all the rest, could do nothing but wait in agony for the unknown blow to fall. It seemed an endless time in falling; under the breathless, torturing suspense the moments became hours, with no change except a darkening of the unnatural twilight, an increase of the unnatural sultriness, and a deepening of the unnatural stillness. The little group in the great room of Cedar House sat still and silent, save as they unconsciously drew closer together, moved by the instinct of humanity in common danger.
The girl alone kept her post by the open door and her watch over the forest path, looking for the coming of her lover. She knew that but one thing could keep him from her side, and with all her longing for his presence, a thrill of happiness came from his absence. Through all its distress her heart exulted in the thought that he was faithful in his service to suffering humanity, even when love itself beckoned him away. A great tide of religious gratitude rose in her heart sweeping all fear before it. The love of a man who was both strong and good—the greatest gift that life could give to any woman—was safely hers. Holding this assurance to her heart, she grew wonderfully calm. There could be nothing to fear. In this world or the next, all was well. A wonderful spiritual exaltation bore her upward on its strong, swift wings, high above all the surrounding gloom and terror, till she rested on a white height of perfect peace. There was a rapt look on her quiet, pale face as she sat thus with it turned toward the forest path. She arose quietly and stood in the door, gazing at a shadowy form which came suddenly from under the dark trees. The thick yellow mist wrapped it darkly, but she presently knew by intuition rather than by sight that Paul was really coming at last, and she flew toward him like a homing bird. He was urging his horse, but the animal held back with an unwillingness such as he had never shown before; so that when the young man saw the girl flying toward him he leapt from the saddle, leaving the horse to follow or not as he would, and ran to meet her. As soon as she could speak, she told him that she was not afraid now that he had come, saying it over and over; yet she nevertheless clung to him as if she would never let him go.
"And you will take care of the others, too," she said. "Uncle Robert doesn't know what to do, nor William. Oh! Look! The poor black people! There they come running up from the quarters. See how they are crowding round the door, wild with terror! But you will know what to say to them as well as the others. I am not afraid, with you," quietly looking up in his grave face. "Is it the end of the world, dear heart?"
He said that he knew no more than herself what it could be, unless some terrific tempest might be near. They moved hurriedly on toward the house, and as they went he told her that he was going to the boat where he had been called to see a man ill of the plague. The call had come during the night, but he could not leave another patient to answer it more quickly. And now he would not leave her, for all the rest of the world, till they knew what this awful thing was which seemed about to happen. The white people had come out of the house and stood speechless and motionless, looking up at the heavens and down at the earth, seeing both but dimly through that ghastly twilight so awfully lit by that lurid ball of fire.
"Here comes Father Orin!" cried the doctor. "Look at Toby and my horse; see how they are walking!"
The horses could be indistinctly seen advancing slowly and reluctantly through the yellowish gloom with a curious, sliding motion, as if stepping on ice. Paul started toward them, but paused, struck motionless, and held by a sight still more strange. The same breathless stillness brooded over everything; the windless air now weighed like lead, and yet at this moment the greatest trees and smallest bushes suddenly began to quiver from bottom to top. As far as the horror-struck eyes could reach through that unnatural twilight, the mightiest cottonwoods were now bending and nodding like the frailest reeds. And then there arose in the far northeast a faint rumbling which rushed swiftly onward toward the southeast, growing, louder as it came, and breaking over Cedar House in a thunderous roar. At the deafening crash Paul turned and ran back to Ruth, catching her in his arms. The ground was now sliding beneath their feet. The solid earth was waving and rising and falling like a stormy sea.
"It's an earthquake," he whispered, with his lips against her cheek.
"Don't fear, it will pass."
A second shock followed the first, and there was no lightening of the dreadful gloom which was one of the greatest horrors of that horrible time. But the men were rallying now that they knew what they had to meet, and they quickly and firmly drew the terror-stricken, helpless old women further away from the house, fearing that the massive logs of its walls might be shaken down.