“So’s everybody,” said the mate frankly. “I’ve been through a good deal at sea, gentlemen, but this is about the most awful thing I ever did encounter. I wouldn’t care if we were only able to see what was to happen next.”
A cheer broke out from the crew at that moment, for right overhead the blackness opened, and a clear, bright ray of light shot down upon the deck, quivered, faded, shot out again, and then rapidly grew broader and broader.
“Blue sky!” yelled one of the sailors frantically as a patch appeared; and in his intense excitement he dashed off into the rapid steps of a hornpipe.
“Bravo, my lads!” cried the mate, who was as excited as the men. “Cheer again. Three cheers for the bit of blue!”
The men shouted till they were hoarse, paused, and then cheered again, while Panton turned now to where his friends were standing with the mate, and with the tears welling in his eyes, began to shake hands with first one and then another, all reciprocating and beginning in their hysterical delight to repeat the performance double-handed now, as the light grew broader and clearer. A soft, warm mellow glow, which grew and grew till the huge dense steam clouds were seen to be rolling slowly away in three directions, in the fourth—the north evidently, from the direction of the golden rays of light—there was one vast bank of vapour, at first black, then purple, and by degrees growing brighter, till the men burst forth cheering wildly again at the mass of splendour before them. For far as eye could reach all was purple, orange, gold and crimson of the most dazzling sheen, then darkness once more; for the sun, of which they had a momentary glimpse, was blotted out by the rolling masses of cloud which were floating away.
But it was the darkness of an evening in the tropics. The light had been, and sent hope and rest into their breasts, giving them the knowledge of their position as they lay stranded upon an open plain with the terrible convulsion of nature apparently at an end.