f itself," said Jorgen Jorgensen,
"and do you take charge of that man there, and the woman beside him."

So saying, he pointed towards Michael Sunlocks, who, amid the whirl
of the crowd around, had stood still in his helpless blindness.

Jason saw and heard all, and he shouted to the people to come to his
help, for he was one man against twenty. But the people paid no heed
to his calling, for every man was thinking of himself. Then Jason
fell on the guards with his bare hands only. And his mighty muscles
would have made havoc of many of them, but that Jorgen Jorgensen drew
his pistol again and fired at him, and wounded him. Jason knew
nothing of his injury until his right arm fell to his side, bleeding
and useless. After that, he was seized from behind and from before,
and held to the ground while Michael Sunlocks and Greeba were hurried
away.

Then the air began to be filled with smoke, a wind that was like a
solid wall of black sand swept up from the south, and sudden darkness
covered everything.

"It is the lava!" shouted one.

"It's the fiery flood!" shouted another.

"It's the end of the world!" shouted a third.

And at one impulse the people rushed hither, thither--north, south,
east, west--some weeping, some shrieking, some swearing, some
laughing like demons--all wild with frenzy and mad with terror.

Jorgen Jorgensen found his little piebald pony where he had left it,
for the docile beast, with the reins over its head, was munching the
grass at the foot of the causeway. He mounted, and rode past Jason as
the men were loosening their hold of him, and peering into his face
he said with a sneer, "If this is the end of the world, as they say,
make the best of what is left of it, and fly."

With that, he thrust spurs into his horse's sides, and went off at
utmost speed.

Then Jason was alone on the plain. Not another human soul was left.
The crowd was gone; the Mount of Laws was silent, and a flock of
young sheep ran past it bleating. Over the mountains to the south a
red glow burned along the black sky, and lurid flames shot through
it.

Such was the beginning of the eruption of Skaptar. And Jason
staggered along in the day-darkness, alone, abandoned, shouting like
a maniac, swearing like a man accursed, crying out to the desolate
waste and the black wind sweeping over it, that if this were the end
of the world, he had a question to ask of Him who made it: Why He had
broken His word, which said that