For a moment he was utterly bewildered: no cottage was to be seen.

From the top of the rock against which it was built, shot the whole mass of the water he had been pursuing, now dark with stones and gravel, now grey with foam, or glassy in the lurid light.
"O Jesus Christ!" he cried, and darted to the place.

When he came near, to his amazement there stood the little house unharmed, the very centre of the cataract! For a few yards on the top of the rock, the torrent had a nearly horizontal channel, along which it rushed with unabated speed to the edge, and thence shot clean over the cottage, dropping only a dribble of rain on the roof from the underside of its half-arch.

The garden ground was gone, swept clean from the bare rock, which made a fine smooth shoot for the water a long distance in front.

He darted through the drizzle and spray, reached the door, and lifted the hatch.