itself. Some of these fragments were partially covered with white skin
as of a human being, and others--the largest and most numerous--with
scaled skin as of a gigantic lizard or serpent. Once, in a sort of lull
or pause, the seething contents of the hole rose, after the manner of a
bubbling spring, and Adam saw part of the thin form of Lady Arabella,
forced up to the top amid a mass of blood and slime, and what looked as
if it had been the entrails of a monster torn into shreds. Several times
some masses of enormous bulk were forced up through the well-hole with
inconceivable violence, and, suddenly expanding as they came into larger
space, disclosed sections of the White Worm which Adam and Sir Nathaniel
had seen looking over the trees with its enormous eyes of emerald-green
flickering like great lamps in a gale.

At last the explosive power, which was not yet exhausted, evidently
reached the main store of dynamite which had been lowered into the worm
hole. The result was appalling. The ground for far around quivered and
opened in long deep chasms, whose edges shook and fell in, throwing up
clouds of sand which fell back and hissed amongst the rising water. The
heavily built house shook to its foundations. Great stones were thrown
up as from a volcano, some of them, great masses of hard stone, squared
and grooved with implements wrought by human hands, breaking up and
splitting in mid air as though riven by some infernal power. Trees near
the house--and therefore presumably in some way above the hole, which
sent up clouds of dust and steam and fine sand mingled, and which carried
an appalling stench which sickened the spectators--were torn up by the
roots and hurled into the air. By now, flames were bursting violently
from all over the ruins, so dangerously that Adam caught up his wife in
his arms, and ran with her from the proximity of the flames.

Then almost as quickly as it had begun, the whole cataclysm ceased,
though a deep-down rumbling continued intermittently for some time. Then
silence brooded over all--silence so complete that it seemed in itself a
sentient thing--silence which seemed like incarnate darkness, and
conveyed the same idea to all who came within its radius. To the young
people who had suffered the long horror of that awful night, it brought
relief--relief from the presence or the fear of all that was
horrible--relief which seemed perfected when the red rays of sunrise shot
up over th