"Hungry no doubt, and homesick of course," he says, half aloud. "What a wretch I am, to be sure!"
With the words he furls his umbrella, and unmindful of the scorching rays of the sun, starts in rapid pursuit of the runaway, who is now out of sight in a bend of the rising road.
Past the dirty suburbs Ned hastens, and now he is climbing the steep side of Monte Rosa. On either hand are great thickets of tree-ferns, which as he ascends give place to thickets of the wild-growing banana festooned through and through with fragrant flowering vines where humming-birds of gorgeous hue disport themselves. Across the reddish earth of the roadway dart green and gold lizards with black beady eyes, land-crabs scuttle hastily away from his hurrying footsteps, and once or twice the ugly face of a harmless iguana leers at him from a way-side stump.
Breathless, and dripping with perspiration at every pore, Ned reaches the summit, but runaway Joe is nowhere in sight. The plateau at the left is smooth and level, a crumbled stone parapet follows the edge of the cliff, and the ruins of what was once a small fortress stand further back. Perhaps Joe is hidden thereabouts.
"This is a pretty go; now isn't it?" exclaims Ned, in a disgusted tone, as, tearing off his saturated collar and tie, he throws himself at full length on the greensward under the shade of a cabbage-palm which grows close to the parapet, to cool off a bit. Yet the wonderful outlook almost repays him for the exhaustive climb. Before his gaze lies the far-reaching Caribbean Sea, not sparkling and blue as is its wont, however, but strangely calm, and of an oily smoothness, unbroken by a ruffle of wind. There is a curious yellowish haze, too, which has been creeping up from the distant horizon since morning, and is now tempering the heat of the sun, which shines through it with a singularly brassy effect.
"I think," drowsily remarked Ned, "that I'll take a bit of a nap, and hunt for Joseph the unfortunate later."
So Ned, resigning himself to slumber, dreamed that he was the admiral of a fleet manned by deserters from whaling vessels. This fleet was anchored in Queenston Harbor, and was returning the fire from the guns of the fortress above. The cannonading grew louder and louder, until Ned awoke with a start.
But what is this?
Above him is a sky blacker than the ink with which the Calypso's log is written. Great sheets of rose-colored lightning shimmer continually upward from the distant horizon like the rays of aurora borealis, while rattling peals of thunder follow each other in quick succession. Then, as he starts up in a fright, the heavens directly overhead are rent asunder with one blinding flash, simultaneous with which comes a crash of thunder that seems to jar his very brain. Then, as though this were a pre-concerted signal, the sound of a mighty rushing wind, constantly increasing in intensity, is heard, before which, hurtling through the thickening gloom, come clouds of dust, branches of trees, and débris of every sort. The force of the hurricane is not only sufficient to throw Ned to the ground, but to pin him there as by giant hands, as it goes roaring seaward with an awfulness of deafening roar which can not be described in words.
"It is the Day of Judgment!" is the thought which sweeps through Ned's bewildered mind. And then as suddenly as the storm arose there is a lull, followed by an ominous silence as terrifying as the roar itself, for the darkness seems if possible to grow more intense.