She turned to catch it full in the face, and gasped as she pointed to the horizon. At the same instant the lookout sounded a warning, echoed by a quick command from the bridge, and instantly all was activity on board. Mr. Malcolm, as he hurried past the group, called out,
"Run for the saloon! It's a cyclone," and there was an immediate stampede below, while the Hindu boys ran nimbly about the decks, stowing away chairs and furling awnings.
Our girls sought shelter with the rest, in the main saloon, and amid its brilliant lights and merry company could scarcely believe in that one swift, southward glance at the strange fast-coming gloom, under which the waves were beginning to seethe, in the distance. There had been one appalling cloud driving upwards in their very faces, with pall-black centers, and edges of cold gray that seemed to curl and writhe like giant lips, intense with scorn and rage.
But sound remained to them, if sight was removed. As they heard the shriek of the fierce, whirling blasts, the rush and hiss of astonished waves whipped into terrible activity, the creaking of beams and timbers suddenly strained to their utmost capacity, the flap and rattle of sails furled with lightning rapidity, and, above all else, the increasing roar, indescribably awful, that was mingled of electricity set free into wide spaces and vapor pent into dire cloud-shapes driven by mighty winds, whose form no man can imagine, whose might only God can guess, they grew silent and gathered in groups, awestricken and still.
At this intense moment, when even the men looked pallid in the arc-light, Dwight suddenly pointed down the saloon, and broke into a hysterical giggle that seemed almost blasphemous at such a time. The next to catch it up was Hope, and in an instant the gale of laughter within almost equalled the gale of wind without. For, running nimbly down the long room, came a tiny figure. Sometimes it was on two legs and sometimes on three, the fourth extremity being occupied with a small hand-glass, which it clutched in its left forepaw.
On its head, set disreputably awry, was a fine flower-laden bonnet, a little evening affair, belonging to Mrs. Campbell, and around its neck trailed a long sash-ribbon of Laura Windemere's. Out from the French roses of the stylish hat peered the solemn old-man face of Andy, the monkey, and he was making as fast for his beloved mistress as three feet could carry him.
Evidently the little wretch had broken bounds and helped himself from the neighboring staterooms. Faith, red and confused, made a dive for him, and caught off the bonnet, but with a shrill cry he clung to the handglass, and ran up to the top of a cabinet, where he calmly wound the long ribbon around his swart body, and, after scolding the assembled company for a moment or so, proceeded to admire himself in the glass, with all the vanity of a Broadway belle.
At just this instant the storm burst with awful fury, and the great ship careened until it was impossible to keep one's footing. Faith, watching the mischievous monkey, as she stood in the center of the floor, was taken unaware and flung with violence to one side, where she might have been cruelly hurt against the hard wall, but for the amazing quickness of Chester Carnegie, who flung himself between just in time to save her from the blow. In the instant that he held her thus a blinding glare seemed to wrap them in white fire, and with it a crashing peal of thunder stunned them into deafness, then all was utter darkness.
For a second it seemed to each that earth and sea stood still, and neither quite knew if life were still left to them, but the next instant a cry rent the air—a cry frightful enough on land, doubly horrible on the wide ocean—the cry of "Fire!"