nding crash, fell over, entangling
all within it beneath its ruin. Also in the city beyond, houses, whole
streets of them, gabled churches and tall towers, sank to the earth,
while where they had been rose up wreathed columns of dust. To the south
the sea became agitated. Spouts of foam appeared upon its smooth face;
it drew back from the land, revealing the slime of ages and embedded
therein long-forgotten wrecks. It heaped itself up like a mountain,
then, with a swift and dreadful motion, advanced again in one vast wave.

In an instant all that multitude were in full flight.

Hugh and Dick fled like the rest, and with them David, though whither
they went they knew not.

All they knew was that the ground leapt and quivered beneath their feet,
while behind them came the horrible, seething hiss of water on the crest
of which men were tossed up and down like bits of floating wood.

CHAPTER XV

THE DEATH AT WORK

Presently Hugh halted, taking shelter with his two companions behind the
stone wall of a shed that the earthquake had shattered, for here they
could not be trodden down by the mob of fugitives.

"The wave has spent itself," he said, pointing to the line of foam that
now retreated toward the ocean, taking with it many drowned or drowning
men. "Let us return and seek for Sir Geoffrey. It will be shameful if we
leave him trapped yonder like a rat."

Dick nodded, and making a wide circuit to avoid the maddened crowd, they
came safely to the wrecked stand where they had last seen Sir Geoffrey
talking with the Doge. Every minute indeed the mob grew thinner, since
the most of them had already passed, treading the life out of those who
fell as they went.

From this stand more than three fourths of those who were seated there
had already broken out, since it had not fallen utterly, and by good
fortune was open on all sides. Some, however, tangled in the canvas
roof, were still trying to escape. Other poor creatures had been crushed
to death, or, broken-limbed, lay helpless, or, worse still, were held
down beneath the fallen beams.

Several of these they freed, whereon those who were unharmed at once
ran away without thanking them. But for a long while they could find
no trace of Sir Geoffrey. Indeed, they were near to abandoning their
search, for the sights and sounds were sickening even to men who were
accustomed to those of battlefields, when Dick's quick ears caught the
tones of an English voice calling