Page:Restless Earth.djvu/50

The tramcar moved townwards, and Patricia could contain her curiosity no longer. She rose and spoke to the motorman.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes, Miss Weybourn?”

Patricia was well-known on the single tram-route. Her business took her to the suburbs often, and it was part of the motormen’s unwritten duty to know and be polite to all passengers. Patricia had not proved hard to know or remember, and her smile was a valued perquisite in the service.

“What has happened?”

The motorman looked his surprise.

“Haven’t you heard?”

“I’ve been out here all day. Is it this morning’s earthquake?”

“Yes. Napier and Hastings have been destroyed.”

Patricia blanched. She clutched at a stanchion to save herself from falling.

“Is that true?” she gasped.

“It came over the wireless, and the paper is full of it. The shake came without warning, and in five seconds the places were in ruins.”

The car stopped to pick up more passengers, and Patricia staggered weakly to her seat.

The car filled gradually on its journey to town, and the sole topic of conversation was the earthquake. Passengers described their sensations and predictions when the shake had come that morning, and all had supposed the tremor to have originated on the West Coast of the South Island. Not a single one had dreamed of associating it with the East Coast of the North Island. That region had never, in the memory of the white man, experienced more than an occasional gentle vibration. It was staggering, incredible. Strangers exchanged reminiscences of shakes experienced. One man, a known liar, professed to have been in the Murchison district and witnessed the actual subsidence of the hill which buried a valley farm completely.