Amazed, they looked up at this incredible defiance, intervening like some act of God to save them.
Suddenly Maitland shouted out into the air, began to pound insanely on the wall of the ledge. For a moment he raged away hysterically, and then Lanyon and Waring held his arms and tried to calm him.
"Hold it, Doctor," Lanyon roared into his face. "Don't be a fool. Control yourself!"
Maitland shook himself free. "Look, Lanyon, up there! Don't you realize what's happened, why that wall fell away from us, _into_ the wind? Don't you see?" When they frowned at him in bewilderment he shouted, "_The wind's dropping!_ It's finally spent itself!"
Sure enough, the great fragment of wall was moving slowly forward into the face of the wind. Maitland pointed at the sky around them. "The air's lighter already! The wind's dying down, you can hear it. It's finally subsiding!"
Together they looked out across the ravine. As Maitland had said, visibility had now increased to over 6oo yards. They could see plainly across the black fields beyond the estate, even trace the remains of a road winding along the periphery. The sky itself had lightened, was now an overcast gray, the sweeping pathways across it inclined slightly downward.
Like a cosmic carousel nearing the end of its run, the storm wind was slowly losing speed.