Presently they were thrown straight up from the ground, and then down and up, while a mad rumbling sounded in their ears. Their senses seemed suddenly to depart, and they felt as if no certainty of anything remained. A short, breathless lull followed, and then there came another great pounding, as if from beneath, some monster drove at the earth's crust with a huge hammer. The beams split, the walls cracked, and the tiles rattled down from the roofs. Everywhere the people ran frantic, with dishevelled hair and glaring eyes. They groped at nothing, and cried pitifully. The earth rumbled on, and again they were shocked and thrown from their feet. The ground gaped, and frightened men tumbled headlong or balanced at the edge of dark, bottomless crevices. Thousands fell and their pitiful cries arose from the mysterious deep or died away with a faint echoing of its awful uncertainty. The fire flashed up and burned fiercely among the débris of falling walls and thatched roofs. The cries of the penned-in victims tore their hearts, and they ran hither and thither, bewildered and uncertain. And when the cruel, heartless earthquake had done its frightful work, and there seemed no chance for greater havoc, there came a roaring and crashing as if the sea were rolling onward, crushing and tossing and mangling in its terrible track the half-living who had escaped the lesser, if more frightful, danger. As the tidal wave came on, grinding and swallowing the earth with gluttonous fury, they huddled and waited. There was nothing to do, no hope to cherish, for they knew not a Home beyond. Their god dwelt where the reason finds its sway, and faith is but a factor in what we know. The mighty wave, rolling inland, tossed upon its crest the treasures of the deep and threw them high upon the mountain side. There were whales of the ocean and ships of the sea hurled a hundred feet above its level and carried miles from its shore. And when the waters receded, carrying likewise the things of the earth, much of the consequences of the terrible disaster went with them. Nor was it satisfied to wash away its own rubbish, but it had carried off, forever, secrets not its own. The dead bodies of Ikamon's vengeful thirst, too, had gone; they were no more, and the tale of their passing lived only in the memory of the few. The many had a multitude of their own to mourn.