“No,” answered Ryan sharply. “I wasn’t looking that way. What did she look like?”
“She is a square-rigged craft of about three or four hundred tons, under close-reefed topsails, lying end-on to us, sir,” answered the man.
“Surely it can’t be our old friend the barque that has drifted within view of us again during the darkness?” exclaimed Ryan excitedly. “Keep a good look-out for her, lads, when the next flash comes,” he added in an eager tone of voice, that showed conclusively how secondary a matter the impending outburst of the elements had already become to him in view of this new discovery.
No second flash came, however, but instead of it, and almost as the last words left Ryan’s lips, the clouds above us burst, and there descended from them the heaviest downpour of rain that I had ever up to that time witnessed. Those who have never beheld a tropical thunder-shower can form no conception of what it is like. Imagine yourself to be standing immediately under a large tank of warm water, and then further imagine that the contents of this tank are suddenly capsized right on top of you; multiply the quantity of falling water a million times, and suppose the descent of the water to be continued for from three to six or seven minutes, and you will then have an imperfect conception of the sort of drenching that we received on the occasion of which I am now speaking. The decks were flooded in an instant, and before I could wriggle into my oil-skins I was soaked to the skin, and the warm water was washing above my ankles with the roll of the schooner. The scuppers were wholly inadequate to the occasion, and we were obliged to open the ports to get rid of the water and prevent it from getting below. The downpour lasted some four minutes or so, ceasing as abruptly and with as little warning as it had commenced; but in that time it had beaten down the swell so effectually that our motion was scarcely more perceptible than it would have been in a well-sheltered roadstead; and the effect of the sudden cessation of the noises that had been so recently sounding in our ears, and of the crash of the downpour, was very weird and curious, the dead silence now being broken only by an occasional faint creak or jar of bulkhead or boom, and the loud gush and gurgle of the water pouring from the scuppers.
The silence was of no long duration, however, for we had scarcely found time to become sensible of it when a faint moaning sound arose in the air, coming from no one knew where; and, presently, with a still louder moan, a sudden, furious, scuffle of wind swept past us, causing our reefed foresail to flap loudly, and was gone. The moanings grew louder and more weird, sounding now on the port-quarter, now on the starboard bow, then broad abeam, and anon high over our mastheads; it was clear that small, partial currents of air were in violent motion all round us, and that the crisis was at hand.
Chapter Eight.
Caught in a Cyclone.
The watch below had been dismissed upon the completion of our work of preparation, but not a man had left the deck, their anxiety to see and know the worst of what was to befall having completely overcome their usual propensity to make the utmost of every moment allotted to them for necessary rest, and they were now all huddled and clustered together upon the forecastle, discussing the situation in low, murmured tones, and holding themselves in readiness, like hounds in the leash, to spring into activity at the first word of command.