Tom Cringle's Log

by Michael Scott

The rushing noise overhead increased, but still all was so calm where we sat, that you could have heard a pin drop. Poo, thought I, it has passed over us after all—no fear now, when one reflects how completely sheltered we are. Suddenly, however, the lights in the room where the body lay were blown out, and the roof groaned and creaked as if it had been the bulkheads of a ship in a tempestuous sea.

“We shall have to cut and run from this anchorage presently, after all,” said I; “the house will never hold on till morning.”

The words were scarcely out of my mouth, when, as if a thunderbolt had struck it, one of the windows in the hall was driven in with a roar, as if the Falls of Niagara had been pouring overhead, and the tempest having thus forced an entrance, the roof of that part of the house where we sat was blown up, as if by gunpowder—ay, in the twinkling of an eye; and there we were with the bare walls, and the angry heaven overhead, and the rain descending in bucketfuls. Fortunately, two large joists or couples, being deeply embedded in the substance of the walls, remained, when the rafters and ridgepole were torn away, or we must have been crushed in the ruins.

There was again a deathlike lull, the wind fell to a small melancholy sough amongst the tree-tops, and once more, where we sat, there was not a breath stirring. So complete was the calm now, that after a light had been struck, and placed on the floor in the middle of the room, showing the surrounding group of shivering half-naked savages, with fearful distinctness, the flame shot up straight as an arrow, clear and bright, although the distant roar of the storm still thundered afar off as it rushed over the mountain above us.

This unexpected stillness frightened the women even more than the fierceness of the gale when at the loudest had done.

“We must go forth,” said Senora Campana; “the elements are only gathering themselves for a more dreadful hurricane than what we have already experienced. We must go forth to the little chapel in the wood, or the next burst may, and will, bury us under the walls;” and she moved towards Maria’s room, where, by this time, lights had again been placed. “We must move the body,” we could hear her say; “we must all proceed to the chapel; in a few minutes the storm will be raging again louder than ever.”

“And my wife is very right,” said Don Ricardo; “so, Caspar, call the other people; have some mats, and quatres, and mattresses carried down to the chapel, and we shall all remove, for, with half of the roof gone, it is but tempting the Almighty to remain here longer.”

The word was passed, and we were soon under weigh, four negroes leading the van, carrying the uncoffined body of the poor girl on a sofa; while two servants, with large splinters of a sort of resinous wood for flambeaux, walked by the side of it. Next followed the women of the family, covered up with all the cloaks and spare garments that could be collected; then came Don Picador Cangrejo, with Ricardo Campana, the skipper, Aaron Bang, and myself; the procession being closed by the household negroes, with more lights, which all burned steadily and clear.

We descended through a magnificent natural avenue of lofty trees (whose brown moss-grown trunks and fantastic boughs were strongly lit up by the blaze of the torches; while the fresh white splinter-marks where the branches had been tom off by the storm, glanced bright and clear, and the rain-drops on the dark leaves sparkled like diamonds) towards the river, along whose brink the brimful red-foaming waters rushed past us, close by the edge of the path, now ebbing suddenly a foot or so, and then surging up again beyond their former bounds, as if large stones or trunks of trees above, were from time to time damming up the troubled waters, and then giving way. After walking about four hundred yards, we came to a small but massive chapel, fronting the river, the back part resting against a rocky bank, with two superb cypress-trees growing, one on each side of the door; we entered, Padre Carera leading the way. The whole area of the interior of the building did not exceed a parallelogram of twenty feet by twelve. At the eastern end, fronting the door, there was a small altar-piece of hard-wood, richly ornamented with silver, and one or two bare wooden benches standing on the tiled floor; but the chief security we had that the building would withstand the storm, consisted in its having no window or aperture whatsoever, excepting two small ports, one on each side of the altar piece, and the door, which was a massive frame of hardwood planking.

The body was deposited at the foot of the altar, and the ladies, having been wrapped up in cloaks and blankets, were safely lodged in quatres, while we, the gentlemen of the comfortless party, seated ourselves, disconsolately enough, on the wooden benches.