their ground with the heroism of true
faith, and reared their temporary asylum under their vine-canopied
bowers, within the shade of the cloisters. A high garden-wall alone
separated me from the holy virgins. They were watching and kneeling.
Every note from their silver voices sank deep in my heart, and impressed
me with something of that pious confidence, of that imploring fervor,
with which they addressed their guardian angels and saints. Two hours
had passed. The awfulness of prevailing tranquillity, the genial warmth
of my fire, and the sweet monotony of that low, mournful chanting, were
by degrees gliding into my troubled senses, and lulling them into a
treacherous security. "Just so," I reasoned, "shock and countershock.
The terrible scourge has by this time exhausted its strength. It was
only a farce, after all. Much ado about nothing. The people of this town
have become so familiar with the earthquake that they make a carnival of
it. By this time they are perhaps feasting and rioting under their
booths. Ho! am I the only craven here? And had I not my desire? Am I not
now on speaking terms with an earthquake?"

Again my words conjured up the waking enemy. A low, hollow, rumbling
noise, as if from many hundred miles' distance, was heard coming rapidly
onward along the whole line of the Apennines. It reached us, it seemed
to stop underneath our feet, and suddenly changing its horizontal for a
vertical direction, it burst upward. The whole earth heaved with a
sudden pang; it then gave a backward bound, even as a vessel shipping a
sea. The motion then became undulatory, and spread far and wide as the
report of a cannon, awakening every echo in the mountain. There was a
rattle and clatter in the town, as if of a thousand wagons shooting down
paving stones. The Ursuline steeple waved in the air like a reed vexed
by the blast. The chair I stood on was all but capsized, and the fire at
my feet was overthrown. The very vault of heaven swung to and fro,
ebbing and heaving with the general convulsion. The doleful psalmody in
the neighboring ground broke abruptly. The chorus of many feminine
voices sent forth but one rending shriek. The clamor of thousands of the
town-folk from their encampment gave its wakeful response. Then the dead
silence of consternation ensued. I picked up every stick and brand that
had been scattered about, steadied myself in my chair, and hung down my
head. "These black hounds," I mused, "hunt in coup