Looking up, we saw a pale blue light flickering on our main-mast head, and for the moment I thought the vessel had taken fire.
"The air is full of electricity," said my father. "St. Elmo's Fires I think the sailors term the phenomenon. Reggie, run below out of the way. If you turn in before I see you again, turn in all standing, for you might be wanted on deck in a hurry."
I turned to obey, but just as I gained the companion the whole sky seemed one blaze of bluish light pierced by vivid flashes of lightning, which was immediately succeeded by a deafening peal of thunder that shook the yacht like a dried leaf in an October gale.
Even as I gained the cabin a furious blast struck the ship broadside on, and, staggering and pitching, she slewed round head to wind. The storm had broken.
Rolling, heaving, jumping short to her tautened cables, the "Fortuna" was fairly caught, and, down below, the sensation of being thrown about like a cork was almost worse than taking one's chances on deck. Reading was an utter impossibility, and all I could do was to wedge myself into my bunk, holding on when an extra heavy lurch threatened to hurl me across the cabin.
Just before midnight my father came below to swallow a hasty meal. The direction of the storm was, he told me, rapidly veering, for in these regions north of the Equator the gyration of these cyclones invariably takes place in one direction—from right to left, against the hands of a watch; while in the Southern Hemisphere the direction is reversed.
"We are on a weather shore at present," he added; "but before long we shall find ourselves on a lee shore, and the motion will be worse."
It was rather cold comfort, for already the pitching was more than I cared about.
At sunrise the wind was blowing dead on shore, and the mountainous breakers, sweeping over the reef, rolled with but slightly diminished force towards the land. The "Fortuna" was naturally head to wind, and riding in a totally opposite direction from that of the previous night, though, thanks to a massive swivel, she was free from the disadvantage of a "foul hawse."
To ease the strain on the cables the motor was started, and, alternately racing and biting as the propeller was lifted clear of the water or else submerged feet below the normal depth, the powerful little engine added its quota of noise to the howling of the elements.