In that hour Quipai was destroyed and its people perished.
As the blood-red sun sank into the bosom of the broad Pacific, a great cloud of smoke and steam, mingled with stones and ashes, was puffed out of the crater and a stream of fiery lava, bursting from the breach in the side of the mountain, followed in the wake of the water.
The uproar was terrific; explosion succeeded explosion; great stones hurled through the air and fell back into the crater with a din like discharges of musketry, and whenever there came a lull we could hear the hissing of the water as it met the lava.
We remained in the garden the night through.

Nobody thought of going indoors; but after a while we became so weary with watching and overwrought with excitement that, despite the danger and the noise we could not keep our eyes open.

Before the southern cross began to bend we were all asleep, Angela and I wrapped in our cobijas, the others on the turf and under the trees.
When I opened my eyes the sun was rising majestically above the Cordillera, but its rays had not yet reached the ocean.

I rose and looked around.

The crater was still smoking, and a mist hung over the oasis, but the lava had ceased to flow, and not a zephyr moved the air, not a tremor stirred the earth.