Page:Hours Spent in Prison.djvu/22

 Over the suburb hung a thick cloud of dust, slowly spreading itself out in the hot air. I looked in that direction, and it seemed to me that the atmosphere was teeming with different sounds, which, broken into atoms, moved and danced together with the dust, growing more and more thick and voluminous. These noises gradually came nearer, so that now I could easily distinguish in the general chaos voices, and finally an indistinct picture appeared, my heart began to beat rapidly, and I felt a presentiment of the approaching tornado of destruction.

I abandoned my work and climbed on the sandy elevated strand; from there I saw men running out of houses in a great hurry, and in dreadful fright and disorder filling the street, and this mob directed its steps towards the interior of the suburb. The crowd was accompanied by children and dogs voiceless out of perplexity; the