No one wanted to risk such an accident as that, you may be sure; so all the passengers stayed huddled up in the dark cabin, listening to the shrieking of the
storm and the creaking of the masts and rigging and trying to keep from bumping into one another when the ship tipped sidewise.
From the point the shore curved away, more and more to the south and west, until at last it disclosed a cove within the cove, a little land-locked harbour, the water level as a pond, broken only by tiny ripples where vagrant breaths and wisps of the
storm hurtled down from over the frowning wall of rock that backed the beach a hundred feet inshore.
On the 4th, however, the sea became more calm, and the
storm lessened its violence; the wind veered southward, and was once more favourable.
By this time it blew a terrible
storm indeed; and now I began to see terror and amazement in the faces even of the seamen themselves.
I say splashed, for the
storm water was sweeping the sand down the hill in a muddy torrent.
It was bitterly cold, for the fierce gusts of the
storm which swept round the turret drove in through every unimpeded way, whistling at the sharp corners and singing round the trembling flagstaff.
I shall send, in time for your next issue, further details of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously into harbour in the
storm.
The
storm rose higher and higher as the evening advanced.
While the
storm continued, no one seemed inclined to sit down, but they collected in little groups under the central skylight, where they stood in a yellow atmosphere, looking upwards.
Carried along a few hundred feet above the ground she was better able to appreciate the Titanic proportions of the
storm than when she had flown in the comparative serenity of the zone above the clouds, for now she could distinctly see the effect of the wind upon the surface of Barsoom.
The opera proceeded, it was a piece with a
storm in it; the mimic thunder began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sough, and the mimic rain to patter.
Between the marble cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating against a terrible
storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy breakers.
