“Thou hast heard my prayer!” she continued, stretching out her arms in supplication. “Thou hast granted me the purification by fire! Thy spirit laughs and licks out long tongues of flame straight from thy fiery throat! Thy countenance is wreathed with smiles, for me, O Death! But if consistent with thy will, spare these children of the forest. They share not my humiliation, degradation and despair.” A hissing, howling hurricane stormed and raged around them. With a convulsive lurch the ground underneath shivered, and finally the elevation on which they stood was rent in twain from top to bottom. One half collapsed and fell in, while through the kettle-shaped opening in the valley swept a flood of mud, scoria and molten lava, which completely submerged the burning ruins. The rain fell in a solid sheet, but now the hot air and steam rising from below tortured them with heat. Suddenly a dog, maddened with terror, leaped into the seething cauldron, and its cry was stifled by a sizzling, crackling sound, as the poor creature was crisped to a cinder. Those who clung to life made frantic leaps over the frightful precipice to the other side, only to be dashed to pieces in the valleys below. The whole district was overwhelmed with lava and hot water pouring out from the lesser peaks around the center of activity. Despite the gales of wind and the heavy downpour, sulphur and other noxious gases permeated the upper air, so that long before the lava crept up and ingulfed them, death by suffocation overtook the wretched remnant. In their extremity the people obeyed Kerœcia implicitly, and many touching exhibitions of heroism marked their last moments. They huddled together at the root of a sequoia gigantea, newly wrenched out of the ground. Nor did they refuse shelter to a grizzly bear, a mountain lion, some wolves, some wild sheep, a colony of snakes, nor the birds hovering in the air, screeching in abject terror or stupefied beyond resistance. The twisting, crackling swish of the trees, the thundering clatter of the rocks shaken loose, and bounding downward with prodigious velocity, passed unnoticed by the martyrs looking at death, calmed and awed by the terribly destructive fury of animated nature. Kerœcia gathered Suravia and Mineola in her arms protectingly, and waited for the end. Up to the very last she sought to comfort and console her companions, so worn with fatigue and excitement that they made no further effort. Some had already crossed the dark waters; others were gasping their last, when death touched her—and she slept. With the passing of her spirit, Kerœcia groaned as she remembered how she sat at the spindle, and of the answering look she then gave Yermah. To the everlasting honor and glory of womankind be it said, that she never sinks so low in the moral scale as to be indifferent to the opinion of the man she loves. Loss of his respect crushes and kills—not the physical, but all that is essentially woman in her nature.