Angels and Women (1924)

TEBAH AND ITS INMATES 207the winds shrieked and howled like infuriateddemons, twisting and tearing everythingin their course. To increase the horribledistraction and din, immense flocks ofbirds and bats of every description werehurtled through the darkening air into thegreedy wave, despite helpless screams andviolent flutterings.And now approached the unimaginablehorror. An earthquake, of awful violence,rocked the valley, one moment stretching itout like a plane, tossing the wreckage to thevery clouds and the next sinking so deep thatthe mountain-tops seemed about to toppleover and crush us. The mighty billows inquick succession roared above the hills andanon settled into a trough of inky blackness.A fierce antagonism of fire and flood ensued,the ribs of earth were cracked, its crust wasrent asunder, subterranean fires belchedforth and a terrible eruption of hissing waterand melted rock, with chaos and darkness,shut us in.