They had started on again when suddenly they felt a sickening sensation, as if the earth were rocking beneath their feet. Then, before they could even guess what was happening to them there came a terrific upheaval that flung them from their feet.
There was the sound as of a mighty roar--as though the universe were crackling and breaking about them.
For a moment they lay stunned by the force with which they had been flung from their feet. Then slowly, one after another they got to their feet, staring stupidly about them.
What had happened? Had a meteor struck the island? Was this the beginning of wholesale destruction? Then came the answer to their confused minds. An earthquake!
The earth was still shaking and quivering beneath them. At any moment might come another quake that would destroy the island and them with it. A deadly nausea was creeping over them. They felt shaken, sick.
Phil was the first to get to his feet. The earth slithered and slid under him and he reeled like a drunken man. There came a second shock, less severe than the first but sufficient to throw him from his balance again.
As Phil struck the ground for the second time, he became suddenly mad clean through. A sort of rage possessed him and he rose to his feet again, shaking his fist at the elements as if they were some tangible enemy that he must conquer. Afterward he could laugh at his fury but it was not funny at the time.
He looked about him and saw the damage wrought by the earthquake. The tremendous roar that had greeted the first shock had been caused by the wholesale uprooting of trees. Great fissures had opened in the earth and into these some of the fallen trees had precipitated themselves.
The ground beneath his feet was quiet now and, bringing his eyes back from the ruin about him he saw that the other boys had risen and were standing shakily beside him.
"Gee, what happened?" said Tom, gingerly feeling of a bump on the back of his head. "I thought it was the end of the world that time for sure."
"That's what it was, pretty near, for us," said Phil, quietly. "Look!" and he pointed toward the mountain lifting its threatening bulk against the sky. A thin, curling line of smoke was hovering above it, a line that thickened even while they looked.