Even here the strange and lurid light flashed on the sides of the chasm as they dashed together again, leaving no trace of the awful catastrophe. Awed into long and complete silence, the occupants of the _Regina_ watched the chaotic disturbance below, rendered doubly amazing by the absence of sound—at least of sufficient volume to penetrate the vessel—and the gentle, deliberate way in which all the movements took place. Had the changes been made with terrible speed and deafening clatter and bang, the observers would not have been disturbed, for there would have been nothing abnormal, but sound _could_ be heard in the ship, and such havoc ought to have been accompanied with crash and noise, yet the upheavals took place silently, the impacts being an ‘absorption’ of one into the other, as it were, with quiet force which seemed awful in its irresistibility. “I think this is more awful than the fire above!” ejaculated Merrick Rutherford, at last. “It is!” agreed Creeve Kelman, with a long breath. “Who would have thought that a world was so formed?” “And contrary, too, to all established beliefs and theories!” said Sorrel. “We had better go down into it,” proposed Gilbert; “we shall be safe! What do you say, all?” “Yes, let us go,” said Dennis; “we have seen as much as we can from here”; and Gilbert stepped towards the switch-board, but scarcely had he traversed half the distance when there was a yell from Godfrey, who turned away from the window, shrieking with laughter. So long and vigorously did he laugh that the poor fellow could not stand, and, doubled up as he was, he sought to sit on a chair, but missing it, fell on the floor, where he lay laughing and crying in turn. “He’s gone mad!” cried half a dozen, in dismay, as they rushed to his assistance, but being waved aside, they formed a circle round their prostrate companion, all the rest hurrying up also. “Whatever’s the matter, Godfrey,” exclaimed Gilbert, running back. “Mad! we’re all mad!” gurgled Godfrey, painfully. “Oh, Great Bona! I shall die, I’m sure I shall! I can’t laugh any more. Oh, dear!” and he rolled over in agony. “Tell us all about it, old man!” exclaimed several, soothingly, as they attempted to raise him up, which drew a protest as he slid back on the floor, moaning, “Oh, don’t! don’t touch me, or I’ll snap in two like a carrot!—the windows!—look out——” All rushed to the windows, but nothing was visible except the turbulent world, and when they turned round Godfrey was sat on the floor with his legs straight out and his hands to his sides, the picture of woe. “There’s nothing!” said Dennis; “only what we’ve been looking at half a day. Tell us what’s the matter, there’s a good chap.” “The matter?” moaned Godfrey, getting on his hands and knees like a bear, but, finding it painful, sitting down again. “The matter! everything’s the matter! And ‘only what we’ve been looking at half a day’!—why, that’s just it, my boy!