Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/126

 night had fallen dark and cloudy—Cleggett ran towards the place. Lady Agatha, refusing to remain behind, went with them. Moving lights and a stir of activity at Morris's, and the gleam of lanterns on board the Annabel Lee, showed Cleggett that his neighbors likewise were excited.

But if Cleggett had expected an easy solution of this astonishing eruption he was disappointed. Arrived at the scene of the explosion, he found that its nature was such as to tease and balk his faculties of analysis. The blast had blown a hole into the ground, certainly; but this hole was curiously filled. Two large bowlders that leaned towards each other had stood on top of the ground. These had been split and shattered into many fragments. A few pieces, like the one that came so near Cleggett, had been flung to a distance, but for the most part the shivered crowns and broken bulks had been served otherwise; the force of the blast had disintegrated them, but had not scattered them; the greater part of this newly-rent stone had toppled into the fissure in the ground, and lay there mixed with earth, almost filling the hole. It was impossible to determine just where and how the blast had been set off; the rocks hid the facts. But Cleggett judged