So vivid was the dream that, waking with a start and a shiver, he hobbled towards the window-hole and stopped to pick up the wooden shutter that should close it. Standing so, still half asleep, with his hand on the shutter-bar, he heard a rushing sound behind him, as though the mountain-side were breaking away overhead and rushing down upon the roof and back of the cabin. He had spent all his life on these slopes and knew the sounds of avalanche and land-slips--small land-slips in this Gallegan valley were common enough. This noise resembled both, yet resembled neither, and withal was so terrifying that he swung round to face it, aquake in his shoes--to see the rear wall bowing inwards and crumbling, and the roof quietly subsiding upon it, as if to bury him alive. For a moment he saw it as the mirror of his dream, cracking and splitting; then, as the image of the Virgin tilted itself forward from its shrine and fell with a crash, he dropped the shutter, and running to the door, tugged at its heavy wooden bolt. The hut was collapsing, and he must escape into the open air. He neither screamed nor shouted, for his terror throttled him; and after the first rushing noise the wall bowed inwards silently, with but a trickle of dry and loosened mud. His gaze, cast back across his shoulder, was on it while he tugged at the bolt. Slowly--very slowly, the roof sank, and stayed itself, held up on either hand by its two corner-props. Then, while it came to a standstill, sagging between them, the wall beneath it burst asunder, St. Joseph and St. James were flung head-over-heels after the Virgin, and through the rent poured a broad river of silver. He faced around gradually, holding his breath. His back was to the door now, and he leaned against it with outspread palms while his eyes devoured the miracle. Dollars! Silver dollars!