He gave no answer. Miss Ainsley knew that her father was not far distant, and that he would come for her by the first train which could reach the city. Accustomed all her life to look at everything from the central point of self, she now, in the greater sense of safety, began to give some thought to the future. Her first conscious decision was to try to be as brave as possible, and so leave a good impression. The second was to get away from the city at once, and she hoped she might never see it again. If Clancy would go with her, if he would even eventually join her at the North, she believed that she could marry him, so favorable was the impression that he had made, but she felt that she was making a great concession, which he must duly appreciate. At present the one consuming wish was to escape, to get away from scenes which to her were horrible in the last degree. In truth only a brave spirit could witness what was taking place on every side, or maintain fortitude under the overwhelming impression of personal danger--an impression which soon banished the partial sense of security felt after reaching the square. The extent of the terror inspired by the earthquake can best be measured by the fact that although columns of smoke and fire, consuming homes and threatening to lay the city in ashes, were rising at several points, they were scarcely heeded. The roar of adjacent flames could even be heard by the vast concourse, but ears were strained to detect that more terrible roar that seemed to come from unknown depths beneath the ocean and the land, and to threaten a fate as awful and mysterious as itself. Even many of the white population could not help sharing in some degree the general belief among the negroes that the end of all things was at hand. The nervous shock sustained by all prepared the way for the wildest fears and conjectures. As in the instance of a bloody battle, those were the best off who were the most occupied. Thousands, however, sat and waited in sickening apprehension, fearing some new horror with every passing moment. There was a sound of weeping throughout the square, while above this monotone rose groans, cries, hysterical screams, loud petitions for mercy, and snatches of hymns. The emotional negroes left no moments of silence. The majority of the white people had become comparatively calm. They talked in low tones, encouraging and soothing one another; the lips of even those who seldom looked heavenward now often moved in silent prayer; fathers, on whose brows rested a heavy load of care, tried to cheer their trembling families; and mothers clasped their sobbing children in their arms, with the feeling that even death should not part them. Over all this array of pallid, haggard faces, shone the flames of the still unquenched conflagration. CHAPTER XLIII "THE TERROR BY NIGHT"