Suddenly, not far from them, a great ragged fissure yawned in the earth and almost instantly closed again. From that moment, for the ensuing ten minutes, the castaways were in a condition bordering on panic. With the very earth under their feet refusing them support they felt that they were, indeed, in a sorry plight.
At the conclusion of the period of time mentioned, the shocks stopped as suddenly as they had begun.
“Do you think there’ll be any more of them?” asked Tom in rather a quavery voice.
“Impossible to say,” said Mr. Jesson. “I imagine that this is a continuation of the one that caused that cliff to collapse, which resulted in my escape from those Indians.”
“I suspect that is it,” said Professor Chadwick. “The great storm may have also resulted from the generally disturbed conditions. We may have no more shocks and we may have a dozen.”
“I’ve known cases of whole islands being swallowed in the South Seas——” began Abner Jennings gloomily.
But Professor Chadwick stopped him.
“If you can’t talk of something more cheerful, my man, don’t talk at all,” he said.
“And tidal waves, too, that wiped out whole cities like Galveston,” muttered Jennings, in a low tone, however.
“There is no reason to expect that another shock will occur,” resumed the Professor; “the very nature of these seismic disturbances results in——”