Chapter Three.
An Indian Ocean Hurricane.
I am not writing this story as a mere diary of travel, and will therefore push on as rapidly as possible to the point where the real living interest of the voyage began, contenting myself with a mere brief reference to the various spots at which we touched. We took eight days to make the passage to Aden, where we arrived early on a certain morning, leaving at five o’clock the same afternoon, after a visit to the famous Tanks. Our next port of call was Zanzibar, whence we proceeded to Durban, in Natal. From Durban we proceeded to Mauritius, remaining in Port Louis harbour two days to permit of a visit to that extraordinary natural curiosity, the Peter Botte Mountain.
From Mauritius we sailed for Colombo. The weather was glorious when we left Port Louis, and for two days afterward, with moderate breezes from the south-east; toward sunset, on our third day out, however, we began to notice signs of a change. The barometer had started to decline shortly after noon; and as the afternoon advanced the breeze weakened, so that from a speed of fourteen knots we dropped down to a bare five, although we were under royals, had all our staysails set, and were showing our whole flight of starboard studding sails as well, the wind being about a point and a half abaft the beam. At the same time the aspect of the sky underwent a subtle change. The clear, rich blue of the vault became gradually obscured by a veil, at first scarcely perceptible, of dirty, whitish-grey haze, from which, by the time of sunset, every trace of blue had completely vanished.
Gradually, too, the sun became shorn of his rays, although there was no perceptible diminution of heat, until at length when the great luminary was upon the point of sinking below the horizon, he had changed into the semblance of a huge, shapeless mass of molten copper hanging suspended in the midst of an almost equally shapeless conglomeration of flame and smoke. Then he slowly vanished from view; the flaming, smoky western sky seemed to blaze up for a few moments into a still fiercer conflagration, the hues deepened until they became a mingling of blood and soot, when with startling suddenness they died out and an inky blackness enveloped the ship. At the same time the small remains of the wind died away, leaving the yacht rolling and lurching heavily upon a sea that seemed to have no run in it, but heaved itself up into great hummocks, only to subside again in the same purposeless manner.
It was drawing on toward the end of the first dog-watch, and as a matter of fact I was off duty. But one never spends a dog-watch below in the tropics if it can be avoided, and Kennedy and I had gone up on the poop together to watch the sunset and discuss with Briscoe, the second mate, the meaning of the portents. Kennedy had never before been in that part of the world, but I had, and while he did not quite know what to make of the aspect of the sky, I had already made up my mind pretty well regarding what was in store for us, and had expressed my opinion as to what we might expect. The first mate did not altogether agree with me, and had proposed that we should refer the matter to Briscoe, who, like myself, knew, or professed to know, the Indian Ocean pretty well. So up we went; and presently, when the last gleam of light was vanishing from the sky, Kennedy beckoned Briscoe to him and said:
“Well, Mr Briscoe, what d’ye think all that grand show away to the west’ard means? Mr Leigh here, who has been in these parts before, says he belaives we’re in for a hurricane.”
“Hurricane be hanged!” retorted Briscoe, who always seemed to find a peculiar pleasure in belittling any opinion that I might express. “What we are in for is a thunderstorm that will make some of ye sit up and take notice. I guess it will bring with it some pretty considerable squalls, so it will be a good plan to stow a few of them flyin’ kites of ours. They’re doin’ no good anyway, and will only thrash themselves threadbare if we leave ’em abroad.”