d increased, the flames
would have appeared above the crater; or at least their lurid
reflections would have penetrated the clouds. Now, even these
reflections were no longer seen. If there had been an earthquake, the
terrified people saw that at least their houses had not crumbled
beneath the shock. It was possible that the uproar had been caused by
an avalanche, the fall of some mighty rock from the summit of the
mountains.

An hour passed without other incident. A wind from the west sweeping
over the long chain of the Blueridge, set the pines and hemlocks
wailing on the higher slopes. There seemed no new cause for panic;
and folk began to return to their houses. All, however, awaited
impatiently the return of day.

Then suddenly, toward three o'clock in the morning, another alarm!
Flames leaped up above the rocky wall of the Great Eyrie. Reflected
from the clouds, they illuminated the atmosphere for a great
distance. A crackling, as if of many burning trees, was heard.

Had a fire spontaneously broken out? And to what cause was it due?
Lightning could not have started the conflagration; for no thunder
had been heard. True, there was plenty of material for fire; at this
height the chain of the Blueridge is well wooded. But these flames
were too sudden for any ordinary cause.

"An eruption! An eruption!"

The cry resounded from all sides. An eruption! The Great Eyrie was
then indeed the crater of a volcano buried in the bowels of the
mountains. And after so many years, so many ages even, had it
reawakened? Added to the flames, was a rain of stones and ashes about
to follow? Were the lavas going to pour down torrents of molten fire,
destroying everything in their passage, annihilating the towns, the
villages, the farms, all this beautiful world of meadows, fields and
forests, even as far as Pleasant Garden and Morganton?

This time the panic was overwhelming; nothing could stop it. Women
carrying their infants, crazed with terror, rushed along the eastward
roads. Men, deserting their homes, made hurried bundles of their most
precious belongings and set free their livestock, cows, sheep, pigs,
which fled in all directions. What disorder resulted from this
agglomeration, human and animal, under darkest night, amid forests,
threatened by the fires of the volcano, along the border of marshes
whose waters might be upheaved and overflow! With the earth itself
threatening to disappear from under the feet of the fugitiv