s roar, which made
the earth tremble, the rocks quake, and laid every vestige of vegetation
flat to the ground, it came on mightier and mightier, and fiercer and
fiercer, with black masses of never-ending clouds sweeping close down
like dark midnight, as if heaven and earth had come together. All
through the gloomy day and through the night this elemental war, with
its legions of careering demons, continued to lash the sea and smite the
land; until, as if satiated with vengeance, the clouds belched forth in
red lightning, vomiting out peal upon peal of awful thunder as a parting
salute, and then, moderating down to a hard gale from another quarter,
broke away. The blue sky appeared, and the glorious sun once more came
up in his majesty over the distant hills of Cuba.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE VIRGIN MARY.

"A weary weed, tossed to and fro,
Drearily drenched in the ocean brine,
Soaring high and sinking low,
Lashed along without will of mine;
Sport of the spoom of the surging sea;
Flung on the foam, afar and near,
Mark my manifold mystery--
Growth and grace in their place appear."

With the boy clasped to his heart, the doctor sat beside the altar of
the chapel during all the direful strife without, shielding his little
charge from the clouds of fine sand and rubbish that every few minutes
came swirling within the temple, dashing the padre's candlesticks into
battered lumps of brass on the pavement, and tearing to atoms the votive
offerings hung around the walls by the pirates. But, as if in mercy to
the trustful souls lying there, the Virgin Mary still looked down in
sweet pity upon them, and the little chapel stood unharmed.

When at last, however, the hurricane's back was broken, and Aeolus had
reined up his maddened chargers and curbed their flying wings, and when
all the demons of the wind had gone moaningly back to their caverns in
the clouds, the doctor arose, and with the boy beside him, knelt
devoutly before the altar while he uttered a fervent prayer of
thanksgiving.

"Come, my Henri, now we may go out and see if we can find something to
eat and drink. You are weak and hungry, my poor little boy; but you
shall not suffer much longer."

That strong man, with the heart of a gentle woman, had no thought of how
ill, and famished, and thirsty he himself was from the terrible torture
he had endured. No, he only thought of the child who had saved him.

In front of