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The mountains looked surpassingly lovely, clad as they were in living, green; ribbed with lava ridges; flecked with white cottages; riven by deep chasms purple with shade; the great slopes dashed with sunshine and mottled with shadows flung from the drifting squadrons of the sky, and the superb picture fitly crowned by towering peaks whose fronts were swept by the trailing fringes of the clouds.

What a sight of sublime desolation must that outpouring of the waters have presented, when those steep banks were riven by the sweeping torrents that were loosened from their former bounds.

Oh down by the river and close by the lake We skim like the swallow and cut though the brake; Over the mountain and round by the lea, Though the black tunnel and down to the sea. Clatter and bang by the wild riven shore, We mingle our shriek with the ocean's roar. We strain and we struggle, we rush and we fly We're a terrible pair, my steed and I.

It'll be hard to salve her, of course; but she won't git the poundin' she'd get at low-water mark." "I don't care. It's a matter for the underwriters. Don't bother me. I may kill you, Murphy, and your man Hennesey, some day, but not now. I'm too sick." They waited in silence until the crash came a sickening sound of riven timbers and snapping wire rope.

I said to myself, "If that stream had been a little, only a little stronger, or if the rock above it had been only a little weaker, it would have been no laughing matter then; the village might have been shaken to the ground; the rocks hurled into the torrent; jets of steam and of hot water, mixed, it may be, with deadly gases, have roared out of the riven ground; that might have happened here, in short, which has happened and happens still in a hundred places in the world, whenever the rocks are too weak to stand the pressure of the steam below, and the solid earth bursts as an engine boiler bursts when the steam within it is too strong."

The hamlet, near which the cottage stood, nestled under the shelter of a cliff as if in expectation and dread of being riven from its foundations by the howling winds, or whelmed in the surging waves. The cottage itself was on the outskirts of the hamlet, farther to the south. The mind of May entered through its closed door, for mind, like electricity, laughs at bolts and bars.

And that faith is expressed very beautifully and strikingly in one of the Old Testament metaphors, which frequently goes along with this one of the Rock. That act of trust or flight will make it certain that God will be to us for a house of defence, a fortress to save us. Other rock-shelters may crumble. They may be carried by assault; they may be riven by earthquakes.

Close in the wake of that great thunder-crash there burst upon us so mighty a flood of rain that it seemed as though the lightning had riven solid walls asunder within the thick black mass of overhanging vapour, and so had let loose upon us the waters of a lake.

Not only were their garments ragged, threadbare, and patched, but the very persons of the men seemed to have been riven and battered by the tear and wear of the conflict. And no wonder; for the vessel was a South Sea whaler, returning home after a three years' cruise.

With every instant, the lightning broke from the riven chasm of the blackness that seemed suspended as in a solid substance above, brightened the whole heaven into one livid and terrific flame, and showed to the two men the faces of each other, rendered deathlike and ghastly by the glare.