"There will be a very good imitation of one, you may depend, if not a real one."
"If there should be," said the colonel, "you will be rather surprised, for, I can tell you, that a gale off this coast is no joke. You would be truly amazed at the violence with which a regular south-western sets upon this shore."
"I can easily imagine it," said Mark Ingestrie. "See, it darkens every minute, and what an angry look that small cloud right away in the horizon has."
"It has, indeed," said Johanna, as she clung to the arm of her husband. "Do you think, Mark, that any poor souls will be wrecked to-night?"
"Probably enough; but the coast of Suffolk and the Irish Channel will be the worst. It will be child's play here in comparison."
A strange booming noise came across the sea at this moment, and the colonel cried out—
"Is that a gun, or is it thunder?"
"Thunder!" said Ingestrie; "hark! there it is again! There is a storm some forty or fifty miles off. It's right away in the German Ocean, most likely; but only look now even, dark as it is getting, how the sea is rising, and what an odd seething condition it is getting into."
They all stood on the balcony and looked out towards the sea. The surface of it was to the eye only undulating quite gently, and yet, strange to say, it was rapidly covering with white foam, and that from no perceptible cause, for as yet the wind was a mere trifle.
"How is that?" said Johanna. "The sea is not very rough, and yet it is all white."