“God spare us!” exclaimed poor Winnie, whose trembling form was now partially supported by Nigel.

As she spoke darkness again obscured everything, and they could do naught but listen to the terrible sounds—­and pray.

On—­on went the Sunshine, in the midst of wreck and ruin, on this strange voyage over land and water, until a check was felt.  It was not a crash as had been anticipated, and as might have naturally been expected, neither was it an abrupt stoppage.  There was first a hissing, scraping sound against the vessel’s sides, then a steady checking—­we might almost say a hindrance to progress—­not violent, yet so very decided that the rigging could not bear the strain.  One and another of the back-stays parted, the foretopsail burst with a cannon-like report, after which a terrible rending sound, followed by an indescribable crash, told that both masts had gone by the board.

Then all was comparatively still—­comparatively we say, for water still hissed and leaped beneath them like a rushing river, though it no longer roared, and the wind blew in unfamiliar strains and laden with unwonted odours.

At that moment another outburst of Krakatoa revealed the fact that the great wave had borne the brig inland for upwards of a mile, and left her imbedded in a thick grove of cocoa-nut palms!

CHAPTER XXIX.

TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS ERUPTION ON THE WOULD AT LARGE.

The great explosions of that morning had done more damage and had achieved results more astounding than lies in the power of language adequately to describe, or of history to parallel.

Let us take a glance at this subject in passing.

An inhabitant of Anjer—­owner of a hotel, a ship-chandler’s store, two houses, and a dozen boats—­went down to the beach about six on the morning of that fateful 27th of August.  He had naturally been impressed by the night of the 26th, though, accustomed as he was to volcanic eruptions, he felt no apprehensions as to the safety of the town.  He went to look to the moorings of his boats, leaving his family of seven behind him.  While engaged in this work he observed a wave of immense size approaching.  He leaped into one of his boats, which was caught up by the wave and swept inland, carrying its owner there in safety.  But this was the wave that sealed the doom of the town and most of its inhabitants, including the hotel-keeper’s family and all that he possessed.

This is one only out of thousands of cases of bereavement and destruction.

A lighthouse-keeper was seated in his solitary watch-tower, speculating, doubtless, on the probable continuance of such a violent outbreak, while his family and mates—­accustomed to sleep in the midst of elemental war—­were resting peacefully in the rooms below, when one of the mighty waves suddenly appeared, thundered past, and swept the lighthouse with all its inhabitants away.