D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 84: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Storm. 75 Like the gun fired to commence a combat, a prodigious thundercloud burst overhead. The cliffs shook so as to precipitate masses into the waters at the foot, which, forced up innumerable channels, ‘heaved the ground and ran out again, hissing, groaning, gurgling like so many half-drowned animals. The canvas at the opening bellied in, floated off the hooks, and followed by the three serving men, bewildered, gyrating, groping, all were driven into the cavern, up- setting the table and benches, heavy though they were, putting out the lights, and sprinkling the end of the hol- low with the embers. Then came a second gust, luckily laden with spray and rain, for it extinguished the sparks, though wetting the women and men. “The earth will blow inside out,” said one. The other, on this knees, without daring to get up, began reciting the calendar of saints, without omitting one. The hghtning shimmered over the impenetrable clouds and died away, vainly trying to leak out of a split. The water which had been flung upon the beach rolled back and met a flurry of rain with an indescribable hissing. Through this head-high wall, vague and shifting, forms were seen mingling as if the sea had yielded up drowned seamen. But it was ithe women of the village, swamped out, huddling up their screaming children in anything handy, and racing up the slope. The waters chased them and then another gust propelled them hugger-mugger into the cavern; this*time M. d’Artagnan’s horse, more intelligent than the mules, accompanied the mass and blocked up the entrance. Had there been any more fugitives, they would have had to stay without. The two ladies, shielded by the overturned table, had not been injured in the least, but were stupefied. The younger was the first to recover her wits, literally, for she said, in a voice meant to be in bravado to cheer her whimpering hearers: “That is the heavenly blunderbuss, but it missed fire!’ This time the duchess did not chide. She, too, sat up and forced a laugh at their ludicrous situation. o" “Mercy on us! It is the world’s end at last, as he CORNICE OOOKS (C©)