Part 22 (1/2)

”Now, the air, as you know, is held to the earth's surface by gravitation, but, being gaseous, it is not held as closely as if it were in a solid state. Also, there is centrifugal force to be considered.

Also the fact that the earth is not round, but flattened at the poles.

Also the important fact that air at the equator is more heated than at the Polar regions. All these things together keep the air in a constant commotion. The combined effect of these, in the northern hemisphere, is that air moving along the surface of the earth is deflected to the right. Thus in the case we are considering, the lower currents, approaching the heated center, do not come in equally from all directions, but are compelled to approach in spirals. This spiral action once begun increases, of itself, in power and velocity. This is a hurricane in its baby stage.”

Another squall struck.

Speech again became impossible. As before, sheets of water--which bore no relation to rain, but seemed rather as though the earth were at the foot of a waterfall from which a river was leaping from on high--were hurled over the land. The shrieking of the wind had a wild and maniacal sound, the sound which Jamaicans have christened ”the h.e.l.l-cackle of a hurricane.” This squall lasted longer, five minutes or more, and when it pa.s.sed, the wind dropped somewhat, but did not die down. It raged furiously, its shriek dropped to a sullen and menacing roar.

”Such a hurricane as this,” the ”Ol' Doc” continued, ”has taken many days to brew. Day after day the air has remained in its ominous quietude over the surface of the ocean, becoming warmer and warmer, gathering strength for its devastating career. The water vapor has risen higher and higher. Dense c.u.mulus clouds have formed, the upper surfaces of which have caught all the sun's heat, intensifying the unstable equilibrium of the air. The powers of the tempest have grown steadily in all evil majesty of destructiveness. Day by day, then hour by hour, then minute by minute, the awful force has been generated, as steam is generated by fierce furnace fires under a s.h.i.+p's boilers.

”Why, Stuart, it has been figured that the air in a hurricane a hundred miles in diameter and a mile high, weighs as much as half-a-million Atlantic liners, and this incredibly huge ma.s.s is driven at twice the speed of the fastest s.h.i.+p afloat. In these gusts, which come with the rain squalls, the wind will rise to a velocity of a hundred and twenty miles an hour. It strikes!”

A crack of thunder deafened all, and green and violet lightning winked and flickered continuously. The hiss of the rain, the shrieking of the wind and the snapping crackle of the thunder defied speech. The heat in the hurricane wing was terrific, but Stuart s.h.i.+vered with cold. It was the cold of terror, the cold of helplessness, the cold of being powerless in such an awful evidence of the occasional malignity of Nature.

Between the approach of night and the closing in of the clouds, an inky darkness prevailed, though in the intervals between the outbursts of lightning, the sky had a mottled copper and green coloration, the copper being the edges of low raincloud-ma.s.ses, and the green, the flying scud above.

Squall followed squall in ever-closer succession, the uproar changing constantly from the shriek of the hundred-mile wind in the squall to the dull roar of the fifty-mile wind in between. The thunder crackled, without any after-rumble, and the trembling of the ground could be felt from the pounding of the terrific waves half a mile away. Then, in a long-drawn-out descending wail, like the howl of a calling coyote, the hurricane died down to absolute stillness.

”Whew!” exclaimed Stuart, in relief. ”I'm glad that's over.”

”Over!” the scientist exclaimed. ”The worst is to come! We're in the eye of the hurricane. Look!”

Overhead the sky was almost clear, so clear that the stars could be seen, but the whirl of air, high overhead, made them twinkle so that they seemed to be dancing in their places. To seaward, a violet glow, throbbing and pulsating, showed where the lightning was playing.

”I'm going out to see if all's safe,” said the scientist. ”Do you want to come?”

Stuart would have rather not. But he dared not refuse. They had hardly left the hurricane wing and got to the outside, when ”Ol' Doc” sniffed.

”No,” he said, ”we'll go back. We're not full in the center. The edge will catch us again.”

He pointed.

Not slowly this time, but with a swiftness that made it seem unreal, a shape like a large hand rose out of the night and blotted out the stars.

A distant clamor could be heard, at first faintly, and then with a growing speed, like the oncoming of an express train.

”In with you, in!” cried the scientist.

They rushed through the low pa.s.sage and bolted the heavy door.

Then with a crash which seemed enough to tear a world from its moorings, the opposite side of the hurricane struck, all the worse in that it came without even a preparatory breeze. The noise, the tumult, the sense of the elements unchained in all their fury was so terrible that the boy lost all sense of the pa.s.sage of time. The negroes no longer moaned or prayed. A stupor of paralysis seized them.

So pa.s.sed the night.

Towards morning, the painful rarefaction of the air diminished. The squalls of rain and all-devouring gusts of wind abated, and became less and less frequent.

The sky turned gray. Upon the far horizon rose again the cirrus arc, but with the dark above and the light below. Majestically it rose and spanned the sky, and, under its rim of destruction, came the sunrise in its most peaceful colors of rose and pearl-gray, sunrise upon a ravaged island.

Over three hundred persons had been killed that night, and many millions of dollars of damage done. Yet everyone in Barbados breathed relief.

The hurricane had pa.s.sed.