Alexina shuddered and her volatile spirits winged their way down into those
dark and intuitive depths of her mind she had never found time to plumb.
She knew that the hour of dawn was always still, but she had never imagined
a stillness so complete, so final as this. Nor was there any fresh
lightness in the morning air. It seemed to press downward like an enormous
invisible bat; or like the shade of buried cities, vain outcroppings of
a vanished civilization, brooding menacingly over this recent flimsy
accomplishment of man that Nature could obliterate with a sneer.
Alexina, holding her breath, glanced upward. That ghost of evening's
twilight, the sad gray of dawn, had retreated, but not before the crimson
rays of sunrise. The unflecked arc above was a hard and steely blue. It
looked as if marsh lights would play over its horrid surface presently, and
then come crashing down as the pillars of the earth gave way.
II
Alexina was a child of California and knew what was coming. She barely had
time to brace herself when she saw the sleeping city jar as if struck by a
sudden squall, and with the invisible storm came a loud menacing roar of
imprisoned forces making a concerted rush for freedom.
She threw her arms about one of the trees, but it was bending and groaning
with an accent of fear, a tribute it would have scorned to offer the mighty
winds of the Pacific.
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