The baby had been named Charles, after Toc’s young brother, and the inelegant name of “Dumplin’” had been given him to prevent his being confounded with Charlie, senior.
Susannah did as she was bid, and the young giant, rolling her and the baby and the bedclothes into one bundle, lifted them in his wide-spreading arms and rushed out of the house.
He had to pass a neighbour’s house on the way, which also stood dangerously near the ravine. Kicking its door open, he shouted, “All hands, ahoy! Turn out! turn out!” and passed on.
A few seconds later John Adams, who had gone to sleep with his nose flattened on the Bible, was startled by the bursting in of his door.
“Hallo, Toc!” he cried, starting up; “what’s wrong, eh?”
“All right, father, but the ravine is bearin’ down on us.”
Thrusting his living bundle into an empty bunk, the stout youth left it to look after itself, and rushed out with Adams to the scene of devastation.
The avalanche was still advancing when they reached the spot, but a fortunate obstruction had turned it away from the houses. It moved slowly but steadily downwards like genuine lava, and in the course of a few hours swept some hundreds of cocoa-nut trees, a yam ground, containing nearly a thousand yams, one of the canoes, and a great mass of heterogeneous material, over the cliffs into the sea. Then the stream ceased to flow, the consternation of the people began to abate, and they commenced to repair, as far as possible, the damage caused by that memorable typhoon.