ying and cannonade. Almost at the moment the
earth began to rock. The city awoke. The rocking increased. Roofs
began to fall, walls to bulge, masonry to split and sway.

"The earthquake! The earthquake!" screamed a thousand voices, and
with cries and lamenting the people hurried into the streets and
fell on their knees or their faces, unable to stand on the waving,
trembling ground. It was an hour of terror. All lights were blown
out by the storm or extinguished in the fall of houses, save one or
two of baleful meaning that flickered above roofs which had caught
fire. The sea could be heard advancing toward the land with tremendous
roaring, driving up the channel of the Pasig and overspreading its
banks on either side, while far below, and most dreadful of all,
the fall could be heard of pieces of the earth's crust into pits
of fire and the vast rumble and groan of a world. Houses crumbled,
people were pressed to death and maimed in the blackness, streets
cracked asunder, trees were uprooted, chaos was come again.

In the morning the survivors looked upon a scene of ruin worse than
any wrought by the pirates. The sanctity of the cathedral had not saved
it. Of its imposing walls hardly anything remained. A heap of masonry
marked its place. Every public building was destroyed. Wretches hurt
to the death were pinned under fallen stones and timbers, and many,
willing enough to relieve them, were too dazed and agonized by their
own pains and misfortunes to pull their wits together. Spain had
enjoyed her triumphs. Now her calamities had begun.

On the night before the catastrophe, Alonzo Cuyapit, a rich Indian
of Dilao, a suburb of the city, and his friend, the chaplain of the
San Francisco Convent, were at prayers together before a statue of
St. Francis, that was the Indian's dearest pride. He had shrined it
fittingly in his home, with flowers and candles about it, and adored
it daily. The statue was of life-size, the work of an adept carver;
was brilliantly painted and gemmed, and had about the neck a rosary
from which hung a cross of polished gold. So many miracles of healing
had been performed by this figure that its renown had gone through
all Luzon.

While Cuyapit and the chaplain were on their knees a tremor shook
the floor. Slight earthquakes of this kind were not unusual. Though
the walls of the house rattled, the statue remained fixed and
still. Another jar was felt in the ground, and raising their hands
to the