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to retire, fearful of a repetition of the shake which would completely destroy the town—as report stated Hastings and Napier had been destroyed.

“Windy!” commented the driver, referring to the state of mind of the inhabitants. “And I don’t blame ’em. We must be well into the outside ripples of the shake now. This place seems to have got it much worse than Waipukurau.”

Waipukurau, the town through which they had passed a few minutes before, had, indeed, suffered less; or so it seemed in the darkness. There the people had seemed less fearful, having courage to walk upon the pavements and beneath shop-verandahs. Here the people seemed afraid to leave the centre of the road.

“Dear me!” muttered the elderly man in shocked tones. “Dear me!”

Roy, lacking encouragement, discontinued his efforts to be interesting. He stepped upon the accelerator as the car swung clear of the town. For the best part of a mile the road lay straight before him, and the car immediately ahead was drawing away rapidly. Professional pride demanded that he reduce the distance between with all possible speed.

Consequently the car was travelling too fast to be effectually braked before it hurdled a long, low mound of broken earth which crossed the road diagonally, a wrinkle in the earth’s crust which extended for more than two miles across country—a frozen ripple of the earthquake—and Harley was thrown against the windscreen with a force which dazed him and cracked the glass.

The car screeched to a stop.

“Anybody hurt?” asked Roy anxiously, turning in his seat.

The elderly man rubbed his bruised knees and ejaculated “Dear me!” several times. His wife, crumpled upon the floor of the car, hunched her shoulders in anticipation of immediate death, and was silent. The daughter slid back into her seat and