"It couldn't have been a f-f-fish, could it?" I asked with chattering teeth. "No! _No!_ It was as big as a Pullman car! It must have been a falling star. Did you ever hear of a fish as big as a sleeping car?" I was too thoroughly unnerved to reply. The roaring of the surf had subsided somewhat, enough for another sound to reach our ears--a raucous, gallinacious, squawking sound. I sprang up and looked at the row of tents. White-robed figures loomed in front of them. The heavy artillery was evidently frightened. [Illustration: "The heavy artillery was evidently frightened."] We went over to them, and when we got nearer they chastely scuttled into their tents and thrust out a row of heads--heads hideous with curl-papers. "What was that awful noise? An earthquake?" shrilled the Reverend Dr. Jones. "I think I'll go home." "Was it an avalanche?" demanded Mrs. Batt, in a deep and shaky voice. "Are we in any immediate danger, young man?" I said that it was probably a flying-star which had happened to strike the lake and explode. "What an awful region!" wailed Miss Dingleheimer. "I've had my money's worth. I wish to go back to New York at once. I'll begin to dress immediately--" "It might be a million years before another meteor falls in this latitude," I said, soothingly. "Or it might be ten minutes," sobbed Miss Dingleheimer. "What do _you_ know about it, anyway! I want to go home. I'm putting on my stockings now. I'm getting dressed as fast as I can--" Her voice was blotted out in a mighty crash from the lake. Appalled, I whirled on my heel, just in time to see another huge jet of water rise high in the starlight, another, another, until the entire lake was but a cluster of gigantic geysers exploding a hundred feet in the air, while through them, falling back into the smother of furious foam, great silvery bulks dropped crashing, one after another. I don't know how long the incredible vision lasted; the woods roared with the infernal pandemonium, echoed and re-echoed from mountain to mountain; the tree-tops fairly stormed spray, driving it in sheets through the leaves; and the shores of the lake spouted surf long after the last vast, silvery shape had fallen back again into the water. As my senses gradually recovered, I found myself supporting Mrs. Batt on one arm and the Reverend Dr. Jones upon my bosom. Both had fainted. I released them with a shudder and turned to look for Brown. Somebody had swooned in his arms, too. [Illustration: "Somebody had swooned in his arms, too."] He was not noticing me, and as I approached him I heard him say something resembling the word "kitten." In spite of my demoralization, another fear seized me, and I drew nearer and peered closely at what he was holding so nobly in his arms. It was, as I supposed, Angelica White. I don't know whether my arrival occultly revived her, for as I stumbled over a tent-peg she opened her blue eyes, and then disengaged herself from Brown's arms.