halfway between the Jasper
B. and Morris's. A second after, a missile--which Cleggett later
learned was a piece of rock the size of a man's head--fell with a
splintering crash upon and through the wooden platform beside the
Jasper B., not thirty feet from where Cleggett stood; another splashed
into the canal. The next day Cleggett saw several of these fragments
lying about the plain.

Calling to his men to bring lanterns--for the night had fallen dark and
cloudy--Cleggett ran towards the place. Lady Agatha, refusing to
remain behind, went with them. Moving lights and a stir of activity at
Morris's, and the gleam of lanterns on board the Annabel Lee, showed
Cleggett that his neighbors likewise were excited.

But if Cleggett had expected an easy solution of this astonishing
eruption he was disappointed. Arrived at the scene of the explosion,
he found that its nature was such as to tease and balk his faculties of
analysis. The blast had blown a hole into the ground, certainly; but
this hole was curiously filled. Two large bowlders that leaned towards
each other had stood on top of the ground. These had been split and
shattered into many fragments. A few pieces, like the one that came so
near Cleggett, had been flung to a distance, but for the most part the
shivered crowns and broken bulks had been served otherwise; the force
of the blast had disintegrated them, but had not scattered them; the
greater part of this newly-rent stone had toppled into the fissure in
the ground, and lay there mixed with earth, almost filling the hole.
It was impossible to determine just where and how the blast had been
set off; the rocks hid the facts. But Cleggett judged that the force
must have come from below the bowlders; mightily smitten from beneath,
they had collapsed into the cavern suddenly opening there, as a
building might collapse into and fill a cellar. The pieces that had
been thrown high into the air were insignificant in proportion to the
great bulk which had settled into the hole and made its origin a
mystery.

As Cleggett, bewildered, stood and gazed upon the mass of rock and
earth, Cap'n Abernethy gave a cry and pointed at something with his
finger. Cleggett, looking at the spot indicated, saw upon the edge of
this singular fracture in the earth a thing that sent a quick chill of
horror and repulsion to his heart. It was a dead hand, roughly severed
between the wrist and the elbow. The back of it was uppermost; the