When it had reached an angle where the central tower seemed to be almost at forty-five degrees, the top of the structure buckled. Masonry broke loose and crashed out as an independent shower of debris.
That was the beginning of a sudden disintegration of the skyscraper. The frame seemed to buckle in a dozen places. The speed of descent increased. The building vanished amongst the smaller edifices which surrounded it.
For an instant there was silence. The skyscraper had simply vanished. Then came a terrific cloud of fine rock dust, a great spray of water, and, after a second or two, a shivering roar that shook the consciousness, tore at the ear drums, seemed to reverberate alike through ground and air.
And, as though that roar had been a signal, the clouds swallowed up the sun again, and the sheeted rain whipped down in torrents.
The man came running out from the penthouse.
“What was it?” he asked, impatiently.
The girl’s white lips moved, but made no sound.
“One of the buildings fell,” said Phil, and his own voice was high-pitched with excitement, as well as a recognition of their own danger.
The man nodded.
“Foundations undermined by the rush of water, ground giving way,” he said. “There’ll be earthquakes, too.”
His own voice had lost its excitement, seemed calm and controlled now.
“Look here,” yelled Phil, “we’re in danger here. Let’s get out of this building. It’s swaying right now!”
And the building swayed, jarred, shivered, as though touched by an invisible giant hand.
“Danger!” the man said; “there is no danger. Our fate is assured. I had hoped this might be a spot of high ground when the compensated stresses of balance should get to work, but apparently they are retarded, or else my calculations were in error.”
“What do you mean?” asked Phil.
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s the end. Look here. I’ve got my complete observatory up there on the tower. I’ve been able to predict this for years. Not as to the time — except within a few years. The newspapers gave me a lot of publicity three years ago, then every one forgot about me. I wasn’t even a joke any more.
“And now it’s happening, just as I said it would. Astronomically it’s been inevitable. Historically it’s authenticated. Yet man would never listen.”
“What,” asked Phil, “are you talking about?”
“The flood,” said the man. “Every savage tribe has an old legend of a great flood that swept over the earth. It rained and the waters rose. Everywhere we find geological evidences of such a flood. Yet the thing, as described, is obviously impossible. It couldn’t rain enough to raise the waters of the earth to the point described in the legends of the flood.
“But there’s another factor. The earth has changed its poles. There’s abundant evidence that our north pole, so-called, was once the abode of tropical life, and that the climate changed overnight.
“There are mastodons frozen into the solid ice. They’ve been there for thousands of years. Their stomachs are filled with bulbs and foliage which were tropical in character. Yet their flesh is sufficiently well preserved so that it can be cooked and eaten.
“What does that mean? It means, that in the morning they were roaming about, eating their meal of tropical fruits. It means that by night they were dead and frozen stiff and have been frozen for thousands of years.
“The earth changed its poles. That changed the tides, caused old continents to fall, new ones to arise, and water came rushing in from the ocean. It’s only logical that such a phenomenon was accompanied by terrific rains as the warmer air became condensed in the colder climates which were created. That led to the belief that the flood was caused by rain. It wasn’t. The rain was merely a factor.
“The so-called flood was caused by a changing of the poles of the earth. The Biblical account, in the main, is entirely correct. Except that man, trusting to his limited powers of observation and the inadequate knowledge of the time, attributed the rise of water to the rain.
“Its the same form of reasoning that made you seek to ascribe this beginning of the rise of waters to the breaking of a dam.”
The man ceased speaking, looked from face to face.
“But,” said the girl, “is this another flood? I thought there wouldn’t be any more...”
The scientist laughed.
“This isn’t a flood. It is merely a changing of the earth’s poles. You might as well be philosophic about it. Nature always progresses. She does that by a series of wave motions. She builds, she sustains, and she destroys, and she rebuilds upon the ruins of destruction. That is the law of progress.”
The building gave another shiver.
Phil took the girl’s arm.
“At least,” he said, “we can fight for our lives. We’ll go down to the level of the flood. Then when the building starts to fall we can jump into the water.”
The scientist laughed.
“And when you’re in the water, what then?”
Phil Bregg clamped his bronzed jaw.
“We’ll keep on fighting,” he said. “If Nature wants to destroy me she’s probably strong enough to win out in a fight, but nobody can ever say I was a quitter.”
He became aware that the scientist was contemplating him with dreamy eyes, eyes that were filmed with thought.
“Every time there’s been a destruction on a grand scale,” he said, “Nature has saved a few of the species. That’s the attitude that’s in harmony with evolution, young man, and I think I’ll just tag along with you, as long as I have the power to function on this plane of consciousness; it’ll be interesting to see just what Nature does to you.
“Wait just a minute until I get an emergency package I’ve had prepared for just such a contingency.”
And he jog-trotted into the penthouse.
The girl shuddered.
Phil Bregg looked at the girl, and grinned.
“It seems too cruel... too awful. Think of it, a whole city!”
Phil shook his head, solemnly.
“Not a whole city,” he said, “a whole world!”
Whatever else he might have said was checked by the arrival of the man, carrying a canvas sack, slung over his shoulder with a rope.
Phil Bregg looked at the man’s slight figure, at the bulging sack, and grinned.
“Pard,” he said, “you may be a shark on this scientific stuff but there’s a lot about packing things that you don’t know. Here, let me show you how we pack a bedroll on a shoulder pack when we’re out deer hunting, and have to leave the broncs and pack into a country where there ain’t any water.”
He took it from the man’s shoulder, made a few swift motions, slung the ropes into a sort of harness, slipped the sack to his own broad back.
“There you are,” he said. “See how she rides? Right close to the back. That keeps you from fighting balance all the time—”
His words were swallowed in a terrific roar. The air seemed filled with noise, and the skyscraper upon whose summit they stood swayed drunkenly, like a reed in a breeze.
They fought to keep their balance.
“Another skyscraper down,” said Phil grimly.
The scientist pointed.
“The skyline,” he said, “is changing!”
And it was obviously true. From where they stood they could see the older towers of the lofty buildings of the downtown section, and they were falling like trees before a giant gale. Here and there were buildings cocked over at a dangerous angle, yet apparently motionless. But even as they looked, their eyes beheld two buildings toppling over simultaneously.
“The ones down on the lower ground are going first. The ocean’s sweeping away the foundations,” said the scientist. “It is all as I predicted. And do you know, they actually held me under observation in the psychopathic ward because I had the temerity to make such a prediction.