very great danger
indeed."

"No! God alone--Hearken!"

A muffled peal of thunder which seemed to come from the very bowels of the
earth, followed by a detonation like the discharge of an army's artillery,
and the sides of the crater opened, and with a wild roar the pent-up
torrent burst forth, and leaping into the lake, rolled, a mighty avalanche
of water, toward the doomed oasis.

We looked at each other in speechless dismay. Nothing could resist that
terrible flood; it would sweep everything before it, for, though its
violence might be lessened before it reached the sea, only the few who
happened to be near the coast could escape destruction.

Nobody spoke; the roar of the cataract deafened us, the awfulness of the
catastrophe made us dumb. We were as if stunned, and I was conscious of
nothing save a sickening sense of helplessness and despair.

For an hour we stood watching the outpouring of the water. In that hour
Quipai was destroyed and its people perished.

As the blood-red sun sank into the bosom of the broad Pacific, a great
cloud of smoke and steam, mingled with stones and ashes, was puffed out of
the crater and a stream of fiery lava, bursting from the breach in the
side of the mountain, followed in the wake of the water.

The uproar was terrific; explosion succeeded explosion; great stones
hurled through the air and fell back into the crater with a din like
discharges of musketry, and whenever there came a lull we could hear the
hissing of the water as it met the lava.

We remained in the garden the night through. Nobody thought of going
indoors; but after a while we became so weary with watching and
overwrought with excitement that, despite the danger and the noise we
could not keep our eyes open. Before the southern cross began to bend we
were all asleep, Angela and I wrapped in our cobijas, the others on the
turf and under the trees.

When I opened my eyes the sun was rising majestically above the
Cordillera, but its rays had not yet reached the ocean. I rose and looked
around. The crater was still smoking, and a mist hung over the oasis, but
the lava had ceased to flow, and not a zephyr moved the air, not a tremor
stirred the earth. Only the blackened throat of the volcano and the
ghastly rent in its side were there to remind us of the havoc that had
been wrought and the ruin of Quipai.

I roused the people and bade them prepare breakfast, for though thousands
may perish in a night, the survi