The wonderful result of human ingenuity as measured with the remorseless action of natural forces seemed too startling to be real to the mind of a Spanish priest who, despite all the evidences of triumphant materialism, still clung to the Cross and kept his simple, faithful soul high above the waves that threatened to engulf it.
Turning anew to his melancholy duties, he bent over a dying youth just lifted from beneath a weight of stones that had crushed him.

The boy's fast glazing eyes were upturned to the sky.
"See the angel coming ?" he whispered, thickly--"Never used to believe in them!--but there's one sure enough! Glory--!" and his utterance ceased for ever.
The priest crossed his hands upon his breast and said a prayer--then again looked up to where the air-ship floated in the darkening blue.

It was now directly over the canon,--immediately above the huge rift made by the earthquake, through which the clamorous rush of water poured.
While he watched it, it suddenly stood still, then dived slowly as though bent on descending into the very depths of the gully.

He could not forbear uttering an exclamation, which made all the men about him look in the direction where his own gaze was fixed.
"That air-ship's going to kingdom-come!" said one--"Nothing can save it if it takes to nose-diving down there!" They all stared amazed--but the dreadful work on which they were engaged left them no time for consideration of any other matter.

The priest watched a few minutes longer, more or less held spell-bound with a kind of terror, for he saw that without doubt the great vessel was either purposely descending or being drawn into the vast abyss yawning black beneath it, and that falling thus it must be inevitably doomed to destruction.