The whole party crouched close in beside the rock, and looked anxiously upwards, where a loud rending sound was going on. Another moment and a large cocoa-nut palm, growing in an exposed situation, was wrenched from its hold and hurled like a feather over the cliffs, carrying a mass of earth and stones along with it.
“It’s well the rock overhangs a bit, or we’d have got the benefit o’ that shower,” said Adams. “Come, boys, it’s clear that we’re goin’ to have a dirty night of it, an’ I think we’d better look to our roofs an’ make all snug. If our ground-tackle ain’t better than that o’ the tree which has just gone by the board, we shall have a poor look-out.”
There was much cause for the anxiety which the seaman expressed regarding the roofs of the houses. Already, before they got back to the village, part of the roof of one of the oldest huts had been stripped off, and the women were beginning to look anxiously upwards as they heard the clattering overhead.
“Now, lads, all hands to work. Not a moment too soon either. Out wi’ the old tacklin’ o’ the Bounty. Get the tarpaulins up. Lash one over Toc’s hut. Clap some big stones on Quintal’s. Fetch the ladders, some o’ you youngsters. Out o’ the way, boys. Here, Mainmast; you get the little ’uns off to their bunks. Fetch me the big sledge-hammer, Charlie. Look alive, lads!”
While he shouted these directions, John Adams went to work as actively as the youngest among them. Every one wrought with a will. In a few minutes all moveables were carried under shelter, heavy stones were placed where they were required, tarpaulins and stout ropes were lashed over roofs and pegged to the ground, shutters and doors were made fast, and, in short, the whole village was “made snug” for a “dirty night” with almost as much celerity as if it had been a fully-manned and well-disciplined ship of the line.
As John Adams had said, it was not begun a moment too soon. They had barely finished, indeed, when the heavens appeared to rend with a blinding flash of lightning. Then came a thunder crash, or, rather, a series of crashes and flashes, that seemed to imply the final crack of doom. This was followed by rain in sheets so heavy that it seemed as if the ocean had been lifted and poured upon the island. To render the confusion worse confounded, the wind came in what may be called swirls, overturning trees as if they were straws, and mixing up rain, mud, stones, and branches in the great hurly-burly, until ancient chaos seemed to reign on land and sea.
“It’s an awful night,” said John Adams, as he sat beside his wife and listened, while the children, unable to sleep, peeped in awe and wonder from their several bunks round the room. “God save them that’s at sea this night.”
“Amen!” said Mrs Adams.
By midnight the typhoon had reached its height. The timbers of the houses appeared to groan under the strain to which they were subjected. The whole heavens seemed in a continual blaze, and the thunder came, not in bursts, but in one incessant roar, with intermittent cracks now and then. Occasionally there were louder crashes than usual, which were supposed to be only more violent thunder, but they were afterwards found to be the results of very different causes.
“Now, old ’ooman, you turn in,” said Adams, when the small hours of morning had advanced a little. “You’ll only be unfit for work to-morrow if you sit up bobbin’ about on your stool like that.”