Had it first appeared in the opposite quarter of the horizon, Bruno would have felt a stronger interest in the clouds, knowing as he did that the miscalled “cyclone” almost invariably finds birth in the southwest. Then, too, nearly all the other symptoms were noticeable,—the close, “muggy” atmosphere; the deathlike stillness; the lack of oxygen in the air, causing one to breathe more rapidly, yet with far less satisfying results than usual.
Even as Bruno gazed, those heavy cloud-banks changed, both in shape and in colour, taking on a peculiar greenish lustre which only too accurately forebodes hail of no ordinary force.
His cry to this effect brought the professor forth from the shed-like shanty, while Waldo roused up sufficiently to speak:
“To say nothing of yonder formation way out over the salty drink, my worthy friends, who intimated that a cyclone was born at sea?”
Professor Featherwit frowned a bit as his keen little rat-like eyes turned towards that quarter of the heavens; but the frown was not for Waldo, nor for his slightly irreverent speech.
Where but a few minutes before there had been only a few light clouds in sight, was now a heavy bank of remarkable shape, its crest a straight line as though marked by an enormous ruler, while the lower edge was broken into sharp points and irregular sections, the whole seeming to float upon a low sea of grayish copper.
“Well, well, that looks ugly, decidedly ugly, I must confess,” the wiry little professor spoke, after that keen scrutiny.
“Really, now?” drawled Waldo, who was nothing if not contrary on the surface. “Barring a certain little topsy-turvyness which is something out of the ordinary, I'd call that a charming bit of—Great guns and little cannon-balls!”
For just then there came a shrieking blast of wind from out the northeast, bringing upon its wings a brief shower of hail, intermingled with great drops of rain which pelted all things with scarcely less force than did those frozen particles.
“Hurrah!” shrilly screamed Waldo, as he dashed out into the storm, fairly revelling in the sudden change. “Who says this isn't 'way up in G?' Who says—out of the way, Bruno! Shut that trap-door in your face, so another fellow may get at least a share of the good things coming straight down from—ow—wow!”