But it came at last, with a jarring lift of the earth and a great wind that took us--flat-laid as we were--and tossed us like straws in a heap against the wall. Then the foundations of the world opened with a roar, beating all sensation out of us--so that, had we died then, all taste of dying was gone from us. Answering the roar, as the walls rocked with it, the heavens seemed to split and open, letting through a downrush of slates and stones and mortar: and overhead a great bell clanged once. But in my memory the explosion and the answering downrush stand separated by a dark gulf, in which time was blotted out. I had covered my face with my cloak, and saw no flame at all. Yet when my eyes opened they rested first upon a great rent in the belfry flooring, through which one of the heavy beams, broken midway, thrust up two jagged ends. I saw this through a cloud of smoke, dust, and lime. Beside me my comrades lay under a thick coating of limewash and cobwebs. A couple of them had been flung across my legs, and one or two were groaning. On the far side of the chamber the man Wilkes had scrambled to his feet unhurt, and was leaning with his elbow against the wall. I found my voice, and, while the walls yet rocked, called to Grylls and Trecarrel. To my amazement their two voices answered me: and to my greater amazement one by one the heap of men disengaged themselves, and, shaking off the dust and lime from them, rose to their feet--the whole of them, save for a cut or two and a few bruises, unharmed. Old Carminowe, in particular, had not taken a scratch. But while I stared at them, and while my shaken wits little by little took assurance that the tower stood yet and we were yet alive, in my ears rang the note of that bell which had sounded once overhead. I stared up with a new and horrible apprehension, mercifully till this moment delayed. I had not thought of the bells. The wind of the explosion had whirled two or three of their ropes aloft and flung them over the beams: but the concussion, which had shaken cartloads of cobwebs down upon us, had seemingly left the cage itself uninjured. My eyes sought to pierce the gloom up there in the bells' dark throats. It seemed to me that one of the clappers was swaying. I thought of all that mass of metal slipping, falling; and called on the men in a panic to fetch and lower the ladder.