262 A CATASTROPHE. 



what had happened much less how the catastrophe had been 

 brought about ; and our first feeling of consciousness did not 

 partake so much of terror as of a sort of satisfaction at the 

 idea of our miserable existence having been by some means or 

 other brought nearer to its close. We soon became aware 

 that we had fallen from the kitchen to the cellar beneath, which 

 Martha (poor careful soul !) had not failed to lock on the 

 outside. A partial light was admitted through apertures in 

 the broken floor above, and to reach one of these openings, for 

 the purpose of effecting our escape, was an attempt which, 

 under other circumstances, would have been immediately es- 

 sayed ; but whither could we go to escape from the hideous 

 creatures which had taken possession of the earth ? and, as 

 smarting with the wounds they had inflicted, and aching with 

 bruises, we lay crouched upon the cellar floor, which we verily 

 believed would be our last bed, we felt a ray of comfort in the 

 thought that here at least we were secure from their attacks. 

 While indulging in tin's imagined safety, we were startled by 

 the sound of sometliing astir amongst the surrounding rubbish, 

 and presently from a large mass of it, in heaving motion, there 

 protruded the enormous head and prodigious jaws (black and 

 shining as polished jet) of a mining ant of Brobdignagian 

 proportions. It and its fellows had evidently been the cause 

 of the late catastrophe ; their subterranean operations having 

 undermined the walls of our residence, and thus reduced it to 

 its present state of ruin. Though the moment before indif- 



