The light of the sun was obscured, and there was a perceptible chilliness in the air, and the barometer––which they had brought from the Coral––showed a most startling change. One of the fiercest of the tropical tempests was gathering, and was sure to break upon the island in a few minutes.
This was alarming to contemplate, for the men knew well what kind of elemental disturbances spring up on the shortest notice in the South Seas. But it was not this alone which startled them.
Looking directly out to sea, toward the yeasty waters, they saw a schooner sinking and rising upon the long swells, and certain to be caught, in the very vortex, as may be said, of the hurricane, or tornado, or typhoon, or whatever it should be termed. The 157 craft was not an unfamiliar one––both knew it well––for it was the Coral, with the mutineers on board.
Unarmed as they were, they would not dare place themselves in the power of those toward whom they had shown such enmity, but that they were literally forced to do so to escape almost certain destruction from the impending tempest.
If they should run into the lagoon to wait until the storm should subside, neither the captain nor mate would disturb them––provided they took their departure as soon as it became safe. Still, knowing their treacherous character so well, Bergen and Storms did not mean to trust them at all. Inez was therefore placed within the cabin, while her protectors made certain they were armed and ready for any contingency.
Now that the sun was shut out from sight, a darkness like that of night overspread land and water, while the strong gale howled among the palms, which swayed and bent as if they would soon be uprooted and flung out into the boiling sea. The swells were topped with foam, and large drops of rain, sweeping almost horizontally across the island, struck against the face like pebbles.
The mutineers were heading, so far as was possible, towards the opening in the atoll, but they were not in position to strike it, and, with the deepening darkness 158 and increasing tempest, the task was becoming more difficult every minute. Suddenly a vivid flash of lightning illumined the gloom, and the schooner Coral was observed on the crest of a high wave, heading toward the island; but the two men who saw her, saw also, that she missed the opening and was too close in to make it.
The rumble of thunder continued for some minutes, when once more a blinding flash swept across the murky sky, lighting up sea and island for the instant, as if with the glare of the noonday sun. Captain Bergen and Mate Storms were straining their eyes to catch sight of the little schooner and its crew, but it was invisible. In that single searching glance, they could not have failed to see her had she been afloat. The conclusion, therefore, was inevitable. She and her crew had gone to the bottom of the sea.
Such was the fact. The mutineers had met a frightful though merited fate, and could trouble our friends no more.