casement, reaching it just as, with
a noise like thunder, down went the whole building, when it seemed to me
that I had been struck a violent blow, and the next instant I was
struggling amongst broken wood, dust, and plaster, fighting fiercely to
escape; for there was a horrible dread upon me that at the next throe of
the earthquake we should be buried alive far down in the bowels of the
earth.

I was at liberty, though, the next minute.

"Tom--Tom!" I shouted, feeling about, for the darkness was fearful.
"Where are you?"

"All right, Mas'r Harry," was the reply; "close beside you."

"Here, give me your hand," I shouted, "and let's run down to the shore."

For in my horror that was the first place that occurred to me.

"Can't, sir," said Tom. "I ain't got no legs. Can't feel 'em about
there anywheres; can you?"

"What do you mean?" I cried. "This is no time for fooling! Look
sharp, or we shall lose our lives."

"Well, so I am looking sharp," growled Tom. "Ain't I looking for my
legs? I can't feel 'em nowheres. Oh, here they are, Mas'r Harry, here
they are!"

By this time I had crawled to him over the ruins of the house, to find
that he was jammed in amongst the rubbish, which rose to his knees; and,
as he told me afterwards, the shock had produced a horrible sensation,
just as if his legs had been taken off, a sensation heightened by the
fact that he could feel down to his knees and no farther.

"This is a pleasant spot to take a house on lease, Mas'r Harry," he
said, as I tore at the woodwork.

"Are you hurt?" I exclaimed hastily.

"Not as I knows on, Mas'r Harry, only my legs ain't got no feeling in
'em. Stop a minute, I think I can get that one out now."

We worked so hard, that at the end of a few minutes Tom was at liberty,
and after chafing his legs a little he was able to stand; but meanwhile
the horrors around were increasing every instant, and, to my excited
fancy, it seemed as if the earth was like some thick piece of carpet,
which was being made to undulate and pass in waves from side to side.

Dust everywhere--choking, palpable dust; and then as from afar off came
a faint roar, increasing each moment, till, with a furious rush, a
fierce wind came tearing through the ruins of the smitten town, sweeping
all before it, so that we had to cower down and seek protection from the
storm of earth, sand, dust, plaster, and fragments hurled against us by
the hurricane.

But the rush of wi