I felt that Thyriel was almost exhausted, and thought of detaching myself from the rope which bound me and leaping into the ocean; but the idea had not quite grown into resolve when I saw her wings beat slower and knew that we were hovering over the solid land. In a moment we were standing side by side, she exhausted, I supporting her with my arms. It was not long before she recovered herself, for her attention had been awakened by a startling appearance out in mid-ocean. A high peak rose beyond the cleft and scarred promontory where there had been only waves before, its head turbaned with steam and smoke. It was still shouldering the sea to right and left with hiss of lava tongue and splash of cinder shower. We could not speak for alarmed wonder, and mingling with mine there was deep sorrow over Oomalefa vanished. What had become of it I could not tell. Thyriel roused herself and, divining my thoughts, led me to the steps which had once given entrance to the starry portal. She stooped and lifted in her hand some of what seemed to me fine-sprinkled snow, that covered every inch of rock. It was irelium dust. Once the cohesion of the great edifice had been overcome by the shocks of the earthquake, it fell not into fragments or huge blocks, but into its constituent atoms. Nothing, I thought, could ever replace the wondrous palace of delights that I had only begun to know. I felt saddened beyond recovery, as we turned homewards, over the ruin of such magnificence and so great hopes. Thyriel’s dejection, I discovered, was retrospective. She mourned over the failure of Leomarie, the earthquake art of her family and friends. They had thought that they could anticipate and prevent all the grumblings and revolutions of Lilaroma, and this outbreak had shown the imperfection of their knowledge and the limits of their art. Though but a novice, I could see that something was yet wanting to make them masters of the crust of the earth. For the first time for many generations their foresight had failed. They had known that there was disturbance beneath the mountain, but they had been unable to fix its centre, which was far out at sea. The inflow of the waters had baffled the power of their mountain-cupping instruments, and the rapidly generated steam had rent the crust in the line of Oomalefa; and until the slow-trickling lavas and the swift-belched ashes had sealed the lips of the chasm again, there was danger, they knew, of the whole island exploding. How they were to prevent or even anticipate such cataclysms was a problem that weighed upon every member of the family and saddened every leisure moment.