Angels and Women (1924)

TEBAH AND ITS INMATES 207
the winds shrieked and howled like infuriated
demons, twisting and tearing everything
in their course. To increase the horrible
distraction and din, immense flocks of
birds and bats of every description were
hurtled through the darkening air into the
greedy wave, despite helpless screams and
violent flutterings.
And now approached the unimaginable
horror. An earthquake, of awful violence,
rocked the valley, one moment stretching it
out like a plane, tossing the wreckage to the
very clouds and the next sinking so deep that
the mountain-tops seemed about to topple
over and crush us. The mighty billows in
quick succession roared above the hills and
anon settled into a trough of inky blackness.
A fierce antagonism of fire and flood ensued,
the ribs of earth were cracked, its crust was
rent asunder, subterranean fires belched
forth and a terrible eruption of hissing water
and melted rock, with chaos and darkness,
shut us in.