Darkness and Dawn

She slept. And for a few blessed hours she had respite from woe and pain unspeakable.

At last her dreams grew troubled. She seemed caught in a thunder-storm, an earthquake. She heard the smashing of the lightning bolts, the roaring shock of the reverberation, then the crash of shattered buildings.

A sudden shock awoke her. She thought a falling block of stone had struck her arm. But it was only old Gesafam shaking her in terror.

"Oh, Yulcia, noa!" the nurse was crying in terror. "Up! Waken! The cliff falls! Awake, awake!"

Beatrice sat up in bed, conscious through all the daze of dreams quick broken, that some calamity--some vast and unknown peril--had smitten the colony at Settlement Cliffs.