“Tell her to meet me at the fountain where we last met,” and he hastened back to the spot mentioned.
She soon came. “What is it?” she asked excitedly.
“Johnston is back,” he replied. “He is in the wood there with a fellow who escaped with him in a disabled flying-machine. He says the sea has broken through over in the west and is streaming into Alpha in a torrent.”
“Surely there is some mistake,” she said; “such a thing has never happened.”
“It may have been caused by the explosives during the storm,” went on Thorndyke. “Branasko, the Alphian who was with Johnston, says we are in imminent peril.”
“There must be some mistake,” she repeated incredulously, as she looked to westward. The green glow of the second hour of the afternoon lay over everything. She stood mute and motionless for a long time, looking steadily at the horizon; then she started suddenly, changed her position, and shaded her eyes from the sunlight.
“It really does seem to me that there is a cloud rising, and it is unlike any cloud I ever saw.”
“I see it too!” cried the Englishman; “it must be that the water has already reached the internal fires.”
Bernardino was very pale when she turned to him.
“My father must know this at once; come with me.”