e. He was wearied, as
well as his young comrades; and soon also yielded his spirit to the
embrace of the god Somnus.

Before doing so, however, he had made an observation,--one of a
character not likely to escape the notice of an old mariner such as he.
He had become conscious that a storm was brewing in the sky. The sudden
shadowing of the heavens;--the complete disappearance of the moon,
leaving even the white landscape in darkness;--her red color as she went
out of sight;--the increased noise caused by the roaring of the
breakers; and the louder "swishing" of the wind itself, which began to
blow in quick gusty puffs; all these sights and sounds admonished him
that a gale was coming on.

He instinctively noted these signs; and on board ship would have heeded
them,--so far as to have alarmed the sleeping watch, and counselled
precaution.

But stretched upon terra firma--not so very firm had he but known
it--between two huge hills, where he and his companions were tolerably
well sheltered from the wind, it never occurred to the old salt, that
they could be in any danger; and simply muttering to himself, "the storm
be blowed!" he laid his weather-beaten face upon the pillow of soft
sand, and delivered himself up to deep slumber.

The silent prediction of the sailor turned out a true forecast. Sure
enough there came a storm; which, before the castaways had been half an
hour asleep, increased to a tempest. It was one of those sudden
uprisings of the elements common in all tropical countries, but
especially so in the desert tracts of Arabia and Africa,--where the
atmosphere, rarefied by heat, and becoming highly volatile, suddenly
loses its equilibrium, and rushes like a destroying angel over the
surface of the earth.

The phenomenon that had broken over the arenaceous couch,--upon which
slept the four castaways,--was neither more nor less than a
"sand-storm;" or, to give it its Arab title, a _simoom_.

The misty vapor that late hung suspended in the atmosphere had been
swept away by the first puff of the wind; and its place was now occupied
by a cloud equally dense, though perhaps not so constant,--a cloud of
white sand lifted from the surface of the earth, and whirled high up
towards heaven,--even far out over the waters of the ocean.

Had it been daylight, huge volumes, of what might have appeared dust,
might have been seen rolling over the ridges of sand,--here swirling
into rounded pillar-like shapes, that cou