"But we shall have the wind almost behind us, Fairclough."
"Yes, when it has settled down. It is the change that I do not like. Of course, sometimes we have only a few days of moderately rough weather; but occasionally there is a hurricane at the break up, and a hurricane in the bay of Bengal is no joke. I shall not mind, much, if we get fairly past the Andamans; for from there to the mouth of the Hooghly it is open water, and I should be under no uneasiness as to the brig battling her way through it; but to be caught in a hurricane, with these patches of islands and rocks in the neighbourhood would, to say the least, be awkward."
"Are there any ports among the islands? I recollect hearing an officer say that there was a settlement made there, some years ago."
"That was so. In 1791 an establishment was started in the southern part of the island and, two years later, it was moved to a harbour on the northwest side of the bay. It was called Port Cornwallis; but was abandoned in 1796, being found terribly unhealthy. It was a pity, for it afforded good shelter when the northeast monsoon was blowing, and partially so from the southwest monsoon. No doubt it could have been made more healthy, if the country round had been well cleared; but it was not found to be of sufficient utility to warrant a large outlay, and the natives are so bitterly unfriendly that it would require a garrison of two or three hundred men to overawe them. We should have been always losing life--not from open attacks, perhaps, but from their habit of crawling up, and shooting men down with their arrows."
A week later, they were some seventy or eighty miles to the west of the Andaman group. Directly the brig weathered the northernmost point of Sumatra, the course had been laid more to the west, so as to avoid the dangerous inside passage. When Harry went on deck, in the morning, he found that the wind had dropped altogether.
"There is an end of the monsoon," Fairclough said. "I am just going to shorten sail. There is no saying which way the wind will come. The glass is falling fast but, of course, that is only to be expected. I think, if you are wise, after breakfast you will take off that drill suit, and get into something better calculated to stand rough weather; for that we are sure to have, and any amount of rain. That is always the case, at the changes of the monsoon.
"You see, it is a sort of battle between the two winds; the southwesterly will gain, in the end, but the other will die hard; and it is this struggle that causes the circular storms which, when they are serious, are called hurricanes, though at ordinary times they are simply called the break up of the monsoon, which generally causes bad weather all over the Indian Ocean."
Towards evening, low banks of cloud were seen to the south, and the sky looked dim and misty in the opposite direction.
"They are mustering their forces, you see, Lindsay; and the glass has fallen so far that I fancy the fight will be a hot one. At any rate, we will make all snug for the night."
Sail after sail was taken in, until only a storm jib, a small fore stay-sail, and a close-reefed main top-sail were left standing. The bank of cloud to the south had risen considerably and, when darkness closed in, the upper edge was lit up by the almost incessant flicker of lightning. The upper spars were sent down on deck and then, there being nothing more to be done, the crew, who had all donned rough-weather clothes, awaited the outburst.