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Ch. XIV.]
the Emperor Napoleon.
161

ears. Dr. O'Meara and Major Blakeney, who was appointed captain of the guard at Longwood, rushed immediately from their rooms, expecting to find the ladies half dead with fear. All the household, some of whom were in bed, ran out in the greatest alarm; some were gazing up at the sky, others looking stupified with wonder and amazement as to what had caused such a commotion. Little Tristram Montholon, who had some time previously retired to rest, came screaming to his mother, declaring that somebody had been trying to throw him out of bed. The cause of our terror proved to be an earthquake, the only one remembered to have occurred at St. Helena for nearly a century. The horror this event occasioned us all, can only be conceived by those who are acquainted with the island; more especially was the alarm felt by those whose friends and relatives were residing in any of the valleys, so narrow and wedge-like in their form, and flanked, as they generally