CHAPTER XVII THE CONSEQUENCES Suddenly the deck slid from beneath my feet and I fell flat upon my face. The ship heaved and rolled as if it were tossing upon the waves of the ocean, and her timbers creaked and groaned mournfully. At the same time crash after crash echoed around us, accompanied by a strange rending sound, as if all creation was being torn asunder. Then the ship stood firm, as it had been before, trembling slightly at times but no longer tossing at its rock anchorage. The blackness continued, however, and our men lighted the lanterns, disclosing our white, pallid faces as we peered at one another questioningly. Black Nux had raised me to my feet and was even yet partially supporting me. “What is it?” I whispered. “Eart’quake, Mars Sam,” he replied in a calm voice. “Guess it all over now.” There were a few more trembles, and then came the rain—in a deluge, as it had rained before. We were all driven to seek shelter below, and there we waited anxiously for the sky to clear, that we might discover what cataclysms the quake had wrought. It rained for two solid hours. The darkness continued for an hour or so longer. It lightened gradually, so that the first intimation I had of it was the clearing away of the shadows that had lurked in the corners of the cabin, where the lamplight did not penetrate. I went on deck, where I found Ned, with Nux and Bryonia and most of the crew, all peering anxiously through the dim light in the direction of the sea. “What is it, Ned?” I asked, joining them. “The reefs!” he said, pointing with a trembling finger. “Where are they, Sam?” I also looked, straining my eyes to discover the two jagged lines of rock jutting out of the sea between us and the open water, as well as the boat patrol that had guarded them ever since the day of our shipwreck. But through the gray atmosphere I could see nothing but the broad expanse of ocean. The waves rolled in, one after another, and broke against the very rocks that held the _Seagull_ a prisoner. There was something queer about the position of the ship, too. Heretofore we had been perched between the two points of rock, full twenty feet above the sea. Now the waves almost lapped our sides, and instead of the rocky points being below us, they reared themselves far above the deck on either side. I turned toward the island, from whence not a sound was heard. The light had strengthened sufficiently for me to see the forest line, and presently I was aware that some of the trees near the edge had tottered and fallen their length upon the plain. Otherwise the landscape seemed unchanged, and the open space between us and the forest, which had been the scene of such deadly conflict, looked just as it had before.