s and darkness.

The awful earth sounds still continued--increased, in fact--much to the
terror of every one of us. We had retreated to the back sitting-room.
Moncrieff had left us for a time, to see to the safety of the cattle and
the farm generally, for the Gauchos were almost paralyzed with fear, and
it was found afterwards that the very shepherds had left their flocks and
fled for safety--if safety it could be called--to their _puestos_.

Yet Gauchos are not as a rule afraid of storms, but--and it is somewhat
remarkable--an old Indian seer had for months before been predicting that
on this very day and night the city of Mendoza would be destroyed by an
earthquake, and that not only the town but every village in the province
would be laid low at the same time.

It is difficult to give the reader any idea of the events of this dreadful
night. I can only briefly relate my own feelings and experiences. As we
all sat there, suddenly a great river of blood appeared to split the dark
heavens in two, from zenith to horizon. It hung in the sky for long
seconds, and was followed by a peal of thunder of terrific violence,
accompanied by sounds as if the whole building and every building on the
estate were being rent and riven in pieces. At the self-same moment a
strange, dizzy, sleepy feeling rushed through my brain. I could only see
those around me as if enshrouded in a blue-white mist. I tried to rise
from my chair, but fell back, not as I thought into a chair but into a
boat. Floor and roof and walls appeared to meet and clasp. My head swam. I
was not only dizzy but deaf apparently, not too deaf, however, to hear the
wild, unearthly, frightened screams of twenty at least of our Gaucho
servants, who were huddled together in the centre of the garden. It was
all over in a few seconds: even the thunder was hushed and the wind no
longer bent the poplars or roared through the cloud-like elm-trees. A
silence that could be felt succeeded, broken only by the low moan of
terror that the Gauchos kept up; a silence that soon checked even that
sound itself; a silence that crept round the heart, and held us all
spellbound; a silence that was ended at last by terrible thunderings and
lightnings and earth-tremblings, with all the same dizzy, sleepy,
sickening sensations that had accompanied the first shock. I felt as if
chaos had come again, and for a time felt also as if death itself would
have been a relief.

But this shock passed nex