They gave themselves up for lost--in the agony of terror that partially
interrupted the ordinary functions of their brains, this was absolutely
all they could do! Hardly three minutes had elapsed since Ardan had
caught the first glimpse of it--three ages of agony! Now it was on them!
In a second--in less than a second, the terrible fireball had burst like
a shell! Thousands of glittering fragments were flying around them in
all directions--but with no more noise than is made by so many light
flakes of thistle-down floating about some warm afternoon in summer. The
blinding, blasting steely white glare of the explosion almost bereft the
travellers of the use of their eyesight forever, but no more report
reached their ears than if it had taken place at the bottom of the Gulf
of Mexico. In an atmosphere like ours, such a crash would have burst the
ear-membranes of ten thousand elephants!
In the middle of the commotion another loud cry was suddenly heard. It
was the Captain who called this time. His companions rushed to his
window and all looked out together in the same direction.
What a sight met their eyes! What pen can describe it? What pencil can
reproduce the magnificence of its coloring? It was a Vesuvius at his
best and wildest, at the moment just after the old cone has fallen in.
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