Her suspense was almost breathless.
“There’s shelter by the lake,” Buck said, after a long pause. “We can get to leeward of the rock, an’—it’s near the head of that path droppin’ to the creek. The creek seems better than anywher’ else—after this.”
His manner was decided, but his words offered poor enough comfort.
The Padre agreed, and, at once, they moved across to Joan. For the moment the earth was still again. Its convulsive shudder had passed. Joan struggled to her feet, but her increasing terror left her clinging to the man she loved. The Padre silently gathered Mercy into his arms, and the journey across the plateau began.
But as they moved away the subterranean forces attacked again. Again came that awful rocking, and shaking, which left them struggling for a foothold. Twice they were driven to their knees, only to stagger on as the convulsions lessened. It was a nightmare of nervous tension. Every step of the journey was fraught with danger, and every moment it seemed as though the hill must fall beneath them to a crumbling wreckage.
With heart-sick apprehension Joan watched the growing form of the great rock, which formed the source of the lake, as it loomed out of the smoke-laden dusk. It was so high, so sheer. What if it fell, wrecked with those dreadful earth quakings? But her terror found no voice, no protest. She would not add to the burden of these men. The rock passed behind them, and her relief was intense as the shadow was swallowed up again in the gloom. Then a further relief came to her as the edge of the plateau was reached, and the Padre set his burden down at the head of the narrow path which suggested a possible escape to the creek below.
She threw herself beside her aunt, and heard Buck speaking again to his friend.
“Stop right here with the women,” he said. “I’m goin’ around that lake—seems to me we need to get a peek at it.”
Joan understood something of what he feared. She remembered the weirdness of that suspended lake, and thought with a shudder of the dreadful earth quakings. So she watched him go with heart well-nigh breaking.
Buck moved cautiously away into the gloom. He knew the lake shore well. The evident volcanic origin of it might well answer many questions and doubts in his mind. Its rugged shore offered almost painful difficulties with the, now, incessant quakings below. But he struggled on till he came to the eminence he sought. Here he took up a position, lying on his stomach so that he had a wide view of the surface of the wind-swept water.