"There's no saying where or when a big stone may fall, my girl," he said, "and it's not the habit of Englishmen to let women come under fire, so you'll be safer below. Besides, you'll be able to see something of what's goin' on out o' the cabin windows."
With the obedience that was natural to her, Kathleen went down at once, and the captain made everything as snug as possible, battening down the hatches and shortening sail so as to be ready for whatever might befall.
"I don't like the look o' things, Mr. Moor," said the captain when the second mate came on deck to take his watch.
"No more do I, sir," answered Mr. Moor calmly.
The aspect of things was indeed very changeable. Sometimes, as we have said, all nature seemed to be steeped in thick darkness, at other times the fires of the volcano blazed upward, spreading a red glare on the rolling clouds and over the heaving sea. Lightning also played its part as well as thunder, but the latter was scarcely distinguishable from the volcano's roar. Three days before Sunday the 26th of August, Captain Roy—as well as the crews of several other vessels that were in Sunda Straits at the time—had observed a marked though gradual increase in the violence of the eruption. On that day, as we read in the Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society, about 1 P.M. the detonations caused by the explosive action attained such violence as to be heard at Batavia, about 100 English miles away. At 2 P.M. of the same day, Captain Thompson of the Medea, when about 76 miles E.N.E. of the island, saw a black mass rising like clouds of smoke to a height which has been estimated at no less than 17 miles! And the detonations were at that time taking place at intervals of ten minutes. But, terrible though these explosions must have been, they were but as the whisperings of the volcano. An hour later they had increased so much as to be heard at Bandong and other places 150 miles away, and at 5 P.M. they had become so tremendous as to be heard over the whole island of Java, the eastern portion of which is about 650 miles from Krakatoa.
And the sounds thus heard were not merely like distant thunder. In Batavia—although, as we have said, 100 miles off—they were so violent during the whole of that terrible Sunday night as to prevent the people from sleeping. They were compared to the "discharge of artillery close at hand," and caused a rattling of doors, windows, pictures, and chandeliers.
Captain Watson of the Charles Bal, who chanced to be only 10 miles south of the volcano, also compared the sounds to discharges of artillery, but this only shows the feebleness of ordinary language in attempting to describe such extraordinary sounds, for if they were comparable to close artillery at Batavia, the same comparison is inappropriate at only ten miles' distance. He also mentions the crackling noise, probably due to the impact of fragments in the atmosphere, which were noticed by the hermit and Nigel while standing stunned and almost stupefied on the giddy ledge of Rakata that same Sunday.
About five in the evening of that day, the brig Sunshine drew still nearer to the island, but the commotion at the time became so intense, and the intermittent darkness so profound, that Captain Roy was afraid to continue the voyage and shortened sail. Not only was there a heavy rolling sea, but the water was seething, as if about to boil.
"Heave the lead, Mr. Moor," said the captain, who stood beside the wheel.
"Yes, sir," answered the imperturbable second mate, who thereupon gave the necessary order, and when the depth was ascertained, the report was "Ten fathoms, sand, with a 'ot bottom."