Part 30 (1/2)

CHAPTER XVI

THE CYCLONE

When they awoke nextthe day was dark A solid roof of cloud, lead-coloured and without a ripple on it, lay over the sky, almost to the horizon There was not a breath of wind, and the birds fleildly about as if disturbed by some unseen enemy in the wood

As dick lit the fire to prepare the breakfast, E her baby to her breast; she felt restless and uneasy

As thewore on the darkness increased; a breeze rose up, and the leaves of the breadfruit trees pattered together with the sound of rain falling upon glass A stor different in its approach to the approach of the storms they had already known

As the breeze increased a sound filled the air, co froreat ue was it that sudden bursts of the breeze through the leaves above would drown it utterly Then it ceased, and nothing could be heard but the rocking of the branches and the tossing of the leaves under the increasing wind, which was noing sharply and fiercely and with a steady rush dead fro clouds and ht over the reef The sky that had been so leaden and peaceful and like a solid roof was now all in a hurry, flowing eastward like a great turbulent river in spate

And now, again, one could hear the sound in the distance--the thunder of the captains of the storue, so indeterminate and unearthly that it seemed like the sound in a dream

Emmeline sat a the baby to her breast It was fast asleep dick stood at the doorway He was disturbed in mind, but he did not show it

The whole beautiful island world had now taken on the colour of ashes and the colour of lead Beauty had utterly vanished, all seemed sadness and distress

The cocoa-palms, under the wind that had lost its steady rush and was noing in hurricane blasts, flung themselves about in all the attitudes of distress; and whoever has seen a tropical storm will knohat a cocoa-palm can express by its movements under the lash of the wind

Fortunately the house was so placed that it was protected by the whole depth of the grove between it and the lagoon; and fortunately, too, it was sheltered by the dense foliage of the breadfruit, for suddenly, with a crash of thunder as if the ha froreat slanting wave It roared on the foliage above, which, bending leaf on leaf,roof from which it rushed in a steady sheet-like cascade

dick had darted into the house, and was now sitting beside E the child, which had awakened at the sound of the thunder

For an hour they sat, the rain ceasing and co earth and sea, and the wind passing overhead with a piercing, monotonous cry

Then all at once the wind dropped, the rain ceased, and a pale spectral light, like the light of dawn, fell before the doorway

”It's over!” cried dick,to hi the baby to his breast as if the touch of hiive it protection She had divined that there was so in the silence, away from the other side of the island, they heard a sound like the droning of a great top

It was the centre of the cyclone approaching

A cyclone is a circular stor of hurricane travels across the ocean with inconceivable speed and fury, yet its centre is a haven of peace

As they listened the sound increased, sharpened, and beca that pierced the ear-druing with it the bursting and crashi+ng of trees, and breaking at last overhead in a yell that stunned the brain like the blow of a bludgeon In a second the house was torn away, and they were clinging to the roots of the breadfruit, deaf, blinded, half-lifeless

The terror and the prolonged shock of it reduced thehtened ani the horror lasted they could not tell, when, like a les and stands stock-still, the wind ceased blowing, and there was peace The centre of the cyclone was passing over the island