“Well, I tell you honestly that you’ll find neither beer, wine, or spirits in my house. To everything else you are both heartily welcome.—Ah, that’s not so pleasant,” he exclaimed suddenly.
“Is there anything amiss?” asked Hubert.
“Oh, nothing serious!” was the reply; “only a little disagreeable; but we may perhaps escape it. We’ll pull up for a moment. There; just look on a few hundred yards.”
Ahead of them some little distance, in the centre of the road, a whirling current of air was making the dust revolve in a rapidly enlarging circle. As this circle widened it increased in substance, till at last it became a furious earth-spout, gathering sticks and leaves, and even larger things, into its vortex, and rising higher and higher in the air till it became a vast black moving column, making a strange rustling noise as it approached. Then it left the direct road, and rushed along near them, rising higher and higher in the air, and becoming less and less dense, till its base completely disappeared, and the column spent itself in a fine streak of sand some hundred feet or more above their heads.
“A pleasant escape,” said Mr Oliphant; “we shouldn’t have gained either in good looks or comfort if we had got into the thick of it.”
“I should think not indeed,” said Frank. “Do people often get into these whirlwinds, or earth-spouts, or whatever they should be called?”
“Sometimes they do,” said the other, “and then the results are anything but agreeable. I have seen men go into them white—white jacket, white waistcoat, white trousers, white hat, and come out one universal brown—brown jacket, waistcoat, trousers, hat, eyebrows, whiskers, all brown.”
“Anything but pleasant indeed,” said Hubert. “But do they ever do serious mischief?”
“Not very serious, as far as I know,” replied his uncle. “Once I knew of a pastry-cook’s man who was caught in one of these whirlwinds; he had a tray of tarts on his head, and the wind caught the tray, and whirled it off, tarts and all. But here we are at the ‘Half-way house;’ people commonly can’t go many miles here without the drink. They fancy that, because we live in a country which is very hot in summer, we want more to drink; but it’s just the reverse. Drink very little of anything in the specially hot days, and you’ll not feel the want of it.”
And now, after a further drive of three or four miles, the outskirts of the city of Adelaide were nearly reached, and the distant hills became more plainly visible.