“May God have mercy upon us all!” said Mr Hardy solemnly, as the ground began to rock so violently that they found it impossible to keep their feet. Half-kneeling, half-crouching, they waited. There was a moment of awful expectation, then a crash louder than any that had come before. To Mabel’s eyes, the dark line of wall visible above the roofs was slowly but surely descending upon them, and horror seemed to freeze her blood. Without knowing it, she seized Fitz’s hand, and clung to it desperately. It was a support to have any companionship at that dreadful moment, but she did not trouble to ask herself why she should suddenly feel safe, almost happy. And still the mass of wall hung poised above them for a long, long time—at least, so it seemed, for no appreciable interval can in reality have elapsed; but at the same moment that it struck Mabel that the line against the sky was becoming lower instead of higher, some one called out: “It’s falling the other way!” There was a sound which could only be likened to the simultaneous discharge of a whole battery of 81-ton guns, a shock which threw them all down, and immediately the air was thick with dust and pieces of brick and stone. When it had cleared a little they rubbed their eyes. The line of wall was gone.
Before any one could utter a word, down came the rain in torrents, and the baby relieved the strain of the situation by expressing his dissatisfaction at the very top of his voice. Every one else became conscious at once of a sense of guilt, and Ismail Bakhsh and Fitz, jumping up, set to work to contrive a shelter for his royal highness. Before very long, he and his mother were packed away underneath the bed, with all the rugs and umbrellas that could be found arranged over, under, or around them; and when he had permitted himself to be comforted, the rest felt easier in their minds. Uncertain whether any further shocks were likely to occur, they durst not return to their rooms; but the matting which had been hung along the front of the verandah was supported on sticks to form a sort of tent, and under this they sat, wishing for the day. Fitz hurried away when he had helped to erect the tent, saying that he might be needed elsewhere, and Mabel was left to wonder whether his arm had really been round her when the wall fell. He had sheltered her afterwards from the flying fragments, that she knew, but her mind was not quite clear as to what had happened first.
Fortunately for the dwellers in the inner court, they did not in the least realise the full extent of the damage caused by the earthquake, alarming though their own experiences had been. The whole south front of the fort now lay open to the enemy, for both lines of defence had disappeared simultaneously. Not only had the wall given way, tearing down with it half of the south-western tower, which had been partially undermined by the flood at the beginning of the siege, but in its fall it had completely choked the canal as far as the south-eastern angle. The other walls and towers, the bases of which were sound, had resisted the shocks with wonderful tenacity, but the temporary defences built up of stones and sand-bags, as also the shelters erected as a protection against a cross-fire, were absolutely wrecked. A portion of the materials used had fallen inside the fort, but the greater part was scattered about on the cleared space round. This was the situation at three o’clock in the morning.
“If only the enemy knew the state we are in!” said Colonel Graham, when the extent of the disaster had been roughly estimated.
“I rather hope their own troubles are giving them enough to do, sir,” said Beltring. “I am certain I heard an explosion in their lines just before our wall fell, and there were screams enough for anything.”
“Let us hope they are too busy to attend to us, then. What is it, Runcorn? I see you have something to propose.”
“May I suggest, sir, that we should set to work at once to clear out the canal, even before repairing the walls? If the flow continues to be stopped, we shall soon have a marsh all round us, and yet there will be no way of getting water but by digging.”
The Colonel looked doubtful. “But surely it is impossible to move all that mass of rubbish with the means we have?”
“Yes, sir; we can’t hope to restore the whole channel. But I think we could clear a passage just wide enough to keep the water running, and perhaps to check the enemy’s rush for a moment, and the current itself will soon make it wider.”
“It’s worth thinking of. But while the canal is being cleared out we must build a breastwork behind it, or there will be no cover against a fire from the opposite bank; and we must restore our traverses and sangars on the other walls and the towers. Every man in the fort must set to work, for we can only count on two hours or so more of darkness. See that the men are mustered by word of mouth, Woodworth. We don’t want to force the fact of our wakefulness on the enemy.”