Visions of a sort flowed over my mind without sinking into it, as water flows over marble.
All I could do was fix my eyes on the face of that watch, of which in the flickering lamp-light the second-hand seemed to my excited fancy to grow enormous and jump from one side of the room to the other.
Orme began to count aloud.

"One, two, three, four, five--_now_!" and almost simultaneously he touched the knob first of one battery and next of the other.

Before his finger pressed the left-hand knob I felt the solid rock beneath us surge--no other word conveys its movement.

Then the great stone cross-piece, weighing several tons, that was set as a transom above the tall door of our room, dislodged itself, and fell quite gently into the doorway, which it completely blocked.
Other rocks fell also at a distance, making a great noise, and somehow I found myself on the ground, my stool had slid away from me.

Next followed a muffled, awful roar, and with it came a blast of wind blowing where wind never blew before since the beginning of the world, that with a terrible wailing howled itself to silence in the thousand recesses of the cave city.