The watchers crouched in a crevice of the hillside and gazed narrow-eyed, and their breaths came quick and short, not from the run but because their hearts were in their throats and choked their breathing. It was a most terrible sight. The powers of all evil--death, destruction, and malignity--against the puny works of man. The three awful whirling shapes danced and swung in the lagoon, showing off all their evil graces. Three ineffectual flashes broke from the gunboat, but they avoided them with an easy swing, as though they understood and were on their guard. They reeled towards one another and seemed to take evil counsel together. Then, as though moved by one mind, they swooped down straight on the ships. "Oh, cruel! cruel!" moaned Jean, clasping her boy to her and hiding her face in him. Captain Cathie groaned as he watched, and then burst into incoherent, and unusual, and most excusable blasphemies. Aunt Jannet and Kenneth Blair stared in dreadful fascination. For one of the whirling monsters reached the ships, picked them up, and smashed them and itself together in one dreadful destruction. When the wild welter settled down and permitted sight, the lagoon was bare save for scattered fragments and struggling figures. Another of the awful things made for the opposite mountain side. They saw it strike and break there. The solid earth crumbled and splashed like mud, and palms and rocks slid down to the sea, while the swollen hanging top of it swung away along the hillside belching ragged torrents as it went. The remaining one went roaring past them like a great wounded beast, and tore up the valley, breaking itself and scattering destruction broadcast. They heard the final crash of it away up among the hills, and a foaming torrent came sweeping down the valley carrying everything before it. All this time the wind was blowing a hurricane, Such palms as were left standing whipped and writhed in vain agonies. Some snapped like carrots and lay still. The rain beat mercilessly on the fearful watchers and bit like whips. Blair bent over his wife and boy to shield them with his body. Aunt Jannet, dishevelled and grey, and haggard, still peered out at the horrors in front. A sound from her, between a gasp and a groan, and a sudden terrified clutch at his arm, brought Blair's face up to the crowning horror. There came a roaring from the sea the like of which was never heard before. A mighty wall of water came rushing on the land to overwhelm it. It leaped high over the ridge of rocks that lay like a protecting arm round the nearer curve of the lagoon. The jets of it went rocketting up to heaven, and the mighty ridged crest bristled like an avalanche. Blair sprang upright instinctively, to face the danger standing, and dug his fingers deep into the cracks of the rocks in front of him. [Illustration: Blair sprang upright instinctively.]