slight shock of an earthquake, and it
seemed to me that this must be something of the kind. Certainly my bed
moved under me. I sat up. The room was pitchy dark. In a moment I
felt another movement, but this time it did not seem to me to resemble
an earthquake shock. Such motion, I think, is generally in horizontal
directions, while that which I felt was more like the movement of a
ship upon the water. The storm was at its height; the wind raged and
roared, and the rain seemed to be pouring down as heavily as ever.

I was about to get up and light the lamp, for even the faintest
candle-flame would be some sort of company at such a grewsome moment,
when my bedstead gave another movement, more shiplike than before. It
actually lurched forward as if it were descending into the trough of
the sea, but, unlike a ship, it did not rise again, but remained in
such a slanting position that I began to slide down toward the foot. I
believe that if it had not been a bedstead provided with a footboard, I
should have slipped out upon the floor.

I did not jump out of bed. I did not do anything. I was trying to
think, to understand the situation, to find out whether I was asleep or
awake, when I became aware of noises in the room and all over the house
which even through the din of the storm made themselves noticed by
their peculiarity. Tables, everything in the room, seemed to be
grating and grinding on the floor, and in a moment there was a crash.
I knew what that meant; my lamp had slipped off the table. Any doubt
on that point would have been dispelled by the smell of kerosene which
soon filled the air of the room.

The motion of the bed, which I now believe must have been the motion of
the whole house, still continued; but the grating noises in the room
gradually ceased, from which I inferred that the furniture had brought
up against the front wall of the room.

It now was impossible for me to get up and strike a light, for to do so
with kerosene oil all over the floor and its vapor diffused through the
room would probably result in setting the house on fire. So I must
stay in darkness and wait. I do not think I was very much
frightened--I was so astonished that there was no room in my mind for
fear. In fact, all my mental energies were occupied in trying to find
out what had happened. It required, however, only a few more minutes
of reflection, and a few more minutes of the grating, bumping,
trembling of my hou