The vast bulk of the leaning tree, dislodged from its aerial support by
the gradual sapping of the spring at its roots, or by the crumbling of
the bark from the heat, had slipped, made a half revolution, and,
falling, overbore the lesser trees in its path, and tore, in its
resistless momentum, a broad opening to the underbrush.
With a cry to Low, Teresa staggered to her feet. There was an interval
of hideous silence, but no reply. She called again. There was a sudden
deepening roar, the blast of a fiery furnace swept through the opening,
a thousand luminous points around her burst into fire, and in an
instant she was lost in a whirlwind of smoke and flame! From the onset
of its fury to its culmination twenty minutes did not elapse; but in
that interval a radius of two hundred yards around the hidden spring
was swept of life and light and motion.
For the rest of that day and part of the night a pall of smoke hung
above the scene of desolation. It lifted only towards the morning, when
the moon, riding high, picked out in black and silver the shrunken and
silent columns of those roofless vaults, shorn of base and capital.
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