During this time, short as it was, the morning had advanced, and the cold gray mysterious light disclosed the whole slope before us, dim in the shadow of the Hill. Opposite to us, across the bog, we saw Joyce and Dick watching us, and between the gusts of wind we faintly heard their shouts.
To our right, far down the Hill, the Shleenanaher stood out boldly, its warder rocks struck by the gray light falling over the hill-top. Nearer to us, and something in the same direction, Murdock’s house rose, a black mass in the centre of the hollow.
But as we looked around us, thankful for our safety, we grasped each other more closely, and a low cry of fear emphasised Norah’s shudder, for a terrible thing began to happen.
The whole surface of the bog, as far as we could see it in the dim light, became wrinkled, and then began to move in little eddies, such as one sees in a swollen river. It seemed to rise and rise till it grew almost level with where we were, and instinctively we rose to our feet and stood there awe-struck, Norah clinging to me, and with our arms round each other.
The shuddering surface of the bog began to extend on every side to even the solid ground which curbed it, and with relief we saw that Dick and Joyce stood high up on a rock. All things on its surface seemed to melt away and disappear as though swallowed up. This silent change or demoralization spread down in the direction of Murdock’s house, but when it got to the edge of the hollow in which the house stood, it seemed to move as swiftly forward as water leaps down a cataract.
Instinctively we both shouted a warning to Murdock — he, too, villain though he was, had a life to lose. He had evidently felt some kind of shock or change, for he came rushing out of the house full of terror. For an instant he seemed paralyzed with fright as he saw what was happening. And it was little wonder; for in that instant the whole house began to sink into the earth — to sink as a ship founders in a stormy sea, but without the violence and turmoil that marks such a catastrophe. There was something more terrible, more deadly, in that silent, causeless destruction than in the devastation of the earthquake or the hurricane.
The wind had now dropped away; the morning light struck full over the Hill, and we could see clearly. The sound of the waves dashing on the rocks below, and the booming of the distant breakers filled the air, but through it came another sound, the like of which I had never heard, and the like of which I hope, in God’s providence, I shall never hear again: a long, low gurgle, with something of a sucking sound — something terrible, resistless, and with a sort of hiss in it, as of seething waters striving to be free.
Then the convulsion of the bog grew greater; it almost seemed as if some monstrous living thing was deep under the surface and writhing to escape.
By this time Murdock’s house had sunk almost level with the bog. He had climbed on the thatched roof, and stood there looking towards us, and stretching forth his hands as though in supplication for help. For a while the superior size and buoyancy of the roof sustained it, but then it too began slowly to sink. Murdock knelt, and clasped his hands in a frenzy of prayer.
And then came a mighty roar and a gathering rush. The side of the Hill below us seemed to burst. Murdock threw up his arms; we heard his wild cry as the roof of the house, and he with it, was in an instant sucked below the surface of the heaving mass.
Then came the end of the terrible convulsion. With a rushing sound, and the noise of a thousand waters falling, the whole bog swept, in waves of gathering size and with a hideous writhing, down the mountainside to the entrance of the Shleenanaher — struck the portals with a sound like thunder, and piled up to a vast height. And then the millions of tons of slime and ooze, and bog and earth, and broken rock swept through the Pass into the sea.
Norah and I knelt down, hand in hand, and with full hearts thanked God for having saved us from so terrible a doom.
The waves of the torrent rushing by us at first came almost level with us; but the stream diminished so quickly, that in an incredibly short time we found ourselves perched on the top of a high jutting rock, standing sharply up from the sloping sides of a deep ravine, where but a few minutes before the bog had been. Carefully we climbed down, and sought a more secure place on the base of the ridge of rocks behind us. The deep ravine lay below us, down whose sides began to rattle ominously, here and there, masses of earth and stones deprived of their support below where the torrent had scoured their base.
Lighter and lighter grew the sky over the mountain, till at last one red ray shot up like a crack in the vault of heaven, and a great light seemed to smite the rocks that glistened in their coat of wet. Across the ravine we saw Joyce and Dick beginning to descend, so as to come over to us. This aroused us, and we shouted to them to keep back and waved our arms to them in signal; for we feared that some landslip or some new outpouring of the bog might sweep them away, or that the bottom of the ravine might be still only treacherous slime. They saw our gesticulations, if they did not hear our voices, and held back. Then we pointed up the ravine, and signalled them that we would move up the edge of the rocks. This we proceeded to do, and they followed on the other side, watching us intently. Our progress was slow, for the rocks were steep and difficult, and we had to keep eternally climbing up and descending the serrated edges, where the strata lapped over each other; and besides we were chilled and numbed with cold.
At last, however, we passed the corner where was the path down to the Cliff Fields, and turned eastward up the Hill. Then in a little while we got well above the ravine, which here grew shallower, and could walk on more level ground. Here we saw that the ravine ended in a deep cleft, whence issued a stream of water. And then we saw hurrying up over the top of the cleft Joyce and Dick.
Up to now Norah and I had hardly spoken a word. Our hearts were too full for speech; and, indeed, we understood each other, and could interpret our thoughts by a subtler language than that formulated by man.
In another minute Norah was clasped in her father’s arms. He held her close, and kissed her, and cried over her; while Dick wrung my hand hard. Then Joyce left his daughter, and came and flung his arms round me, and thanked God that I had escaped; while Norah went up to Dick, and put her arms round him, and kissed him as a sister might.
We all went back together as fast as we could; and the sun that rose that morning rose on no happier group, despite the terror and the trouble of the night. Norah walked between her father and me, holding us both tightly, and Dick walked on my other side with his arm in mine. As we came within sight of the house, we met Miss Joyce, her face gray with anxiety. She rushed towards us, and flung her arms round Norah, and the two women rocked each other in their arms; and then we all kissed her — even Dick, to her surprise. His kiss was the last, and it seemed to pull her together; for she perked up, and put her cap straight — a thing which she had not done for the rest of us. Then she walked beside us, holding her brother’s hand.
We all talked at once, and told the story over and over again of the deadly peril I had been in, and how Norah had saved my life; and here the brave girl’s fortitude gave way. She seemed to realise all at once the terror and the danger of the long night, and suddenly her lips grew white, and she would have sunk down to the ground, only that I had seen her faint coming and had caught her and held her tight. Her dear head fell over on my shoulder, but her hands never lost their grasp of my arm.
We carried her down towards the house as quickly as we could; but before we had got to the door she had recovered from her swoon, and her first look when her eyes opened was for me, and the first word she said was: “Arthur! Is he safe?”
And then I laid her in the old arm-chair by the hearth-place, and took her cold hands in mine, and kissed them and cried over them — which I hoped vainly that no one saw.
Then Miss Joyce, like a true housekeeper, stirred herself, and the flames roared up the chimney, and the slumbering kettle on the chain over the fire woke and sang again; and it seemed like magic, for all at once we were all sipping hot whiskey