Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/60



! What's the matter? we hurriedly exclaim. It is a little past midnight. The room is dark, as the moon is just now obscured by a passing cloud.

Did anybody wake me? I vow I felt some one pulling at the bed? And yet there is apparently nothing stirring in the room.

Bang! rattle! What now? The bed is violently tossed to and fro. The walls seem dancing on all sides. The floor sways and creaks, and we hear the crash of falling crockery below. Cocks are crowing. Dogs are barking and howling. And then all again is still. It is very mysterious.

A sickly sensation creeps over us. And then it begins to dawn upon our dumbfoundered [sic] senses that we have just experienced an earthquake. It was a very sharp one, too, while it lasted. We