Now at last my strength failed me. I was as weak as a baby when we put Maurice down.
“By Jove, but this is tremendous!” gasped the Doctor. “At least we’ve got a moment to draw our breath in before chaos comes.”
“And it’s coming,” I said calmly.
“I believe you! Maurice, your weight is something fearful.”
Maurice staggered to his feet, and catching my arm clung to me trembling; yet he was entirely cool.
“This is no earthquake,” he said. “I have experienced too many shocks since I have been in the East to make a mistake.”
“But what else then? We are supposed to be on a mountain—is the mountain tumbling down?” asked the Doctor.
“It is a wash out of some sort,” I asserted boldly. “You know we decided some time since that we were in a limestone region, Doctor; the cavern may have been undermined for years for all we know.”
The Doctor groaned and stared across the rift helplessly.
“Oh, if we were only over there! If we were only over there,” he kept saying. “How did they do it? How—ah! It has come again! This is the last call, boys! Gad! I’ve a mind to jump for it. Here goes.”
I clutched his arm in time and held him back. What he proposed could only have been a leap into the great beyond, for across the rift was more than thirty feet.
Meanwhile the loud cracking which had startled him was followed by a crash awful beyond all telling, and I saw the whole roof of the cavern break away. Great rocks were falling all about us; behind, a black gulf had opened; whirling down from snow-clad peaks now for the first time visible, a mighty wind came sweeping, splashing the rain about as though some bursting reservoir had been suddenly emptied out upon our devoted heads, but through it all that same strange calmness still held its sway.
“Hope!” I cried, flinging one arm about Maurice who was sinking slowly down upon the rocky ledge. “Hope! This is not our end.”
Hope for what?
What could save us?
Yet above that awful din my voice arose loud enough for all to hear.
