Page:Achmed Abdullah--Wings.djvu/190

174 Then he felt a strange, sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach and fell, face foremost.

An immense dark shutter dropped noiselessly, with the speed of lightning, across his mind; and, even at the moment of losing consciousness, he told himself that he had lost and that Corsica had won.

The first thing which he felt when he recovered his senses was that a star was looking at him; then two, then three, and finally he saw that it was night and that the heavens were clear again.

He staggered, rubbed his eyes, and stared. He touched his arms and legs—no—he was not wounded!

But what had happened?

He looked out, to the sea. It stretched, in a sodden, immobile calm; but suddenly it seemed to him that it had changed, that the edge of the horizon was more flat than it had been before.

Then he understood—there had been an earthquake. He turned quickly, toward the village.

It was not there.

There was only a ruined, broken mass, with pink and orange flame-tongues licking over it, while behind the stiff, lanky poplars which edged the mairie