Sir Nathaniel agreed.

“We know, my boy,” he said, “that the unfortunate Lady Arabella is dead, and that the foul carcase of the Worm has been torn to pieces—­pray God that its evil soul will never more escape from the nethermost hell.”

They visited Diana’s Grove first, not only because it was nearer, but also because it was the place where most description was required, and Adam felt that he could tell his story best on the spot.  The absolute destruction of the place and everything in it seen in the broad daylight was almost inconceivable.  To Sir Nathaniel, it was as a story of horror full and complete.  But to Adam it was, as it were, only on the fringes.  He knew what was still to be seen when his friends had got over the knowledge of externals.  As yet, they had only seen the outside of the house—­or rather, where the outside of the house once had been.  The great horror lay within.  However, age—­and the experience of age—­counts.

A strange, almost elemental, change in the aspect had taken place in the time which had elapsed since the dawn.  It would almost seem as if Nature herself had tried to obliterate the evil signs of what had occurred.  True, the utter ruin of the house was made even more manifest in the searching daylight; but the more appalling destruction which lay beneath was not visible.  The rent, torn, and dislocated stonework looked worse than before; the upheaved foundations, the piled-up fragments of masonry, the fissures in the torn earth—­all were at the worst.  The Worm’s hole was still evident, a round fissure seemingly leading down into the very bowels of the earth.  But all the horrid mass of blood and slime, of torn, evil-smelling flesh and the sickening remnants of violent death, were gone.  Either some of the later explosions had thrown up from the deep quantities of water which, though foul and corrupt itself, had still some cleansing power left, or else the writhing mass which stirred from far below had helped to drag down and obliterate the items of horror.  A grey dust, partly of fine sand, partly of the waste of the falling ruin, covered everything, and, though ghastly itself, helped to mask something still worse.

After a few minutes of watching, it became apparent to the three men that the turmoil far below had not yet ceased.  At short irregular intervals the hell-broth in the hole seemed as if boiling up.  It rose and fell again and turned over, showing in fresh form much of the nauseous detail which had been visible earlier.  The worst parts were the great masses of the flesh of the monstrous Worm, in all its red and sickening aspect.  Such fragments had been bad enough before, but now they were infinitely worse.  Corruption comes with startling rapidity to beings whose destruction has been due wholly or in part to lightning—­the whole mass seemed to have become all at once corrupt!  The whole surface of the fragments, once alive, was covered with insects, worms, and vermin of all kinds.  The sight was horrible enough, but, with the awful smell added, was simply unbearable.  The Worm’s hole appeared to breathe forth death in its most repulsive forms.  The friends, with one impulse, moved to the top of the Brow, where a fresh breeze from the sea was blowing up.