The Survivors of the Chancellor: Chapter 34

Chapter 34

CHAPTER XXXIV.

DECEMBER 21st.--No further disturbance has taken place amongst
the men.  For a few hours the fish appeared again, and we caught
a great many of them, and stored them away in an empty barrel.
This addition to our stock of provisions makes us hope that food,
at least, will not fail us.

Usually the nights in the tropics are cool, but to-day, as
evening drew on, the wonted freshness did not return, but the,
air remained stifling and oppressive, whilst heavy masses of
vapour hung over the water.

There was no moonlight; there would be a new moon at half-past
one in the morning, but the night was singularly dark, except for
dazzling flashes of summer lightning that from time to time
illumined the horizon far and wide.  There was, however, no
answering roll of thunder, and the silence of the atmosphere
seemed almost awful, For a couple of hours, in the vain hope of
catching a breath of air, Miss Herbey, Andre Letourneur, and I,
sat watching the imposing struggle of the electric vapours.  The
clouds appeared like embattled turrets crested with flame, and
the very sailors, coarse-minded men as they were, seemed struck
with the grandeur of the spectacle, and regarded attentively,
though with an anxious eye, the preliminary tokens of a coming
storm.  Until midnight we kept our seats upon the stern of the
raft, whilst the lightning ever and again shed around us a livid
glare similar to that produced by adding salt to lighted alcohol.

"Are you afraid of a storm, Miss Herbey?"  said Andre to the
girl.

"No, Mr. Andre, my feelings are always rather those of awe than
of fear," she replied.  "I consider a storm one of the sublimest
phenomena that we can behold--don't you think so too?"

"Yes, and especially when the thunder is pealing," he said; "that
majestic rolling, far different to the sharp crash of artillery,
rises and falls like the long-drawn notes of the grandest music,
and I can safely say that the tones of the most accomplished
ARTISTE have never moved me like that incomparable voice of
nature."

"Rather a deep bass, though," I said, laughing.

"That may be," he answered; "but I wish we might hear it now, for
this silent lightning is somewhat unexpressive"

"Never mind that, Andre" I said; "enjoy a storm when it comes, if
you like, but pray don't wish for it."

"And why not?"  said he; "a storm will bring us wind, you know."

"And water, too," added Miss Herbey, "the water of which we are
so seriously in need."

The young people evidently wished to regard the storm from their
own point of view, and although I could have opposed plenty of
common sense to their poetical sentiments, I said no more, but
let them talk on as they pleased for fully an hour.

Meantime the sky was becoming quite overclouded, and after the
zodiacal constellations had disappeared in the mists that hung
round the horizon, one by one the stars above our heads were
veiled in dark rolling masses of vapour, from which every instant
there issued forth sheets of electricity that formed a vivid
background to the dark grey fragments of cloud that floated
beneath.

As the reservoir of electricity was confined to the higher strata
of the atmosphere, the lightning was still unaccompanied by
thunder; but the dryness of the air made it a weak conductor.
Evidently the fluid could only escape by terrible shocks, and the
storm must ere long burst forth with fearful violence.

This was the opinion of Curtis and the boatswain.  The boatswain
is only weather-wise from his experience as a sailor; but Curtis,
in addition to his experience, has some scientific knowledge, and
he pointed out to me an appearance in the sky known to
meteorologists as a "cloud-ring," and scarcely ever seen beyond
the regions of the torrid zone, which are impregnated by damp
vapours brought from all quarters of the ocean by the action of
the trade-winds.

"Yes, Mr. Kazallon," said Curtis, "our raft has been driven into
the region of storms, of which it has been justly remarked that
any one endowed with very sensitive organs can at any moment
distinguish the growlings of thunder."

"Hark!"  I said, as I strained my ears to listen, "I think I can
hear it now."

"You can," he answered; "yet what you hear is but the first
warning of the storm which, in a couple of hours, will burst upon
us with all its fury.  But never mind, we must be ready for it."

Sleep, even if we wished it, would have been impossible in that
stifling temperature.  The lightning increased in brilliancy, and
appeared from all quarters of the horizon, each flash covering
large arcs, varying from 100deg. to 150deg., leaving the
atmosphere pervaded by one incessant phosphorescent glow.

The thunder became at length more and more distinct, the reports,
if I may use the expression, being "round," rather than rolling.
It seemed almost as though the sky were padded with heavy clouds
of which the elasticity muffled the sound of the electric bursts.

Hitherto, the sea had been calm, almost stagnant as a pond.  Now,
however, long undulations took place, which the sailors
recognized, all too well, as being the rebound produced by a
distant tempest.  A ship, in such a case, would have been
instantly brought ahull, but no manoeuvring could be applied to
our raft, which could only drift before the blast.

At one o'clock in the morning one vivid flash, followed, after
the interval of a few seconds, by a loud report of thunder,
announced that the storm was rapidly approaching.  Suddenly the
horizon was enveloped in a vapourous fog, and seemed to contract
until it was close around us.  At the same instant the voice of
one of the sailors was heard shouting,--

"A squall!  a squall!"

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