"I think I rather hate it," said Crow uneasily.
"I'll get the mackintoshes out of the fore lockers, expect we shall find a use for them before we are through with this beano! You'll have to put yours on," Adrian said, then he laughed. "When it comes, it'll come."
Then they both laughed, and Christobel as usual found support and comfort in her brother's matter-of-fact way of looking at things. She was no coward. Her courage was of a high order, though she was not aware of it, but certain conditions affected her imagination and made icy thrills run all over her.
Adrian would have said "It's only a few clouds--what does that matter?" Equally he would have said of a dark night and its mysteries, "If it were daylight you wouldn't mind! What's the difference? There's nothing there."
While she gazed at the towering masses that hung over sea and land with dread in her eyes, Adrian thought about mackintoshes.
"When the rain comes I shan't mind," said Crow, "rain is only--well, rain."
"How true," murmured Adrian, "and being rain it wets."
They both laughed again, and the skipper felt better.
But even Addie was quite silent before the wetting part came.
The land was invisible now, except when those stabs of flame tore splits in the barrier; then the two watchers could see the dark breathless combes and the big headlands showing black and rugged. But it seemed as though there was no end to the piling weight of cloud that now almost covered the sea, the vivid contrast of the blue space over the shining horizon making it the darker. The growlings and rumblings had now turned to crashes, the noise adding to the dread.