“Would not you? You little know what thunderstorms are here.”
“You forget how many we had in the spring.”
“Those were no more like what we shall have soon, than a June night-breeze in England is like a January frost-wind. You may soon know, however, what a Demerara thunderstorm is like.”
Mary looked about her as her father pointed, and saw that the face of nature was indeed changed. She had mentioned a thunderstorm because she had heard the overseer predict the approach of one.
There was a mass of clouds towering in a distant quarter of the heavens, not like a pile of snowy peaks, but now rent apart and now tumbled together, and bathed in a dull, red light. The sun, too, looked large and red, while distant objects wore a bluish cast, and looked larger and nearer than usual. There was a dead calm. The pigeon had ceased her cooing: no parrots were showing off their gaudy plumage in the sunlight, and not even the hum of the enamelled beetle was heard.
“What is the moon’s age?” asked Mr. Bruce of the overseer.
“She is full to-night, sir, and a stormy night it will be I fear.” He held up his finger and listened.
“Hark!” said Mary, “there is the thunder already.”
“It is not thunder, my dear.”
“It is the sea,” said Louisa. “I never heard it here but once before; but I am sure it is the same sound.”