est was just breaking from the water, and as
her face came slowly into view behind a belt of vapour that lay on the
horizon, it looked fierce and red, stained with smoke like the face of
Eblis.

CHAPTER XVI

THE CYCLONE

When they awoke next morning the day was dark. A solid roof of cloud,
lead-coloured and without a ripple on it, lay over the sky, almost to
the horizon. There was not a breath of wind, and the birds flew wildly
about as if disturbed by some unseen enemy in the wood.

As Dick lit the fire to prepare the breakfast, Emmeline walked up and
down, holding her baby to her breast; she felt restless and uneasy.

As the morning wore on the darkness increased; a breeze rose up, and
the leaves of the breadfruit trees pattered together with the sound of
rain falling upon glass. A storm was coming, but there was something
different in its approach to the approach of the storms they had
already known.

As the breeze increased a sound filled the air, coming from far away
beyond the horizon. It was like the sound of a great multitude of
people, and yet so faint and vague was it that sudden bursts of the
breeze through the leaves above would drown it utterly. Then it ceased,
and nothing could be heard but the rocking of the branches and the
tossing of the leaves under the increasing wind, which was now blowing
sharply and fiercely and with a steady rush dead from the west,
fretting the lagoon, and sending clouds and masses of foam right over
the reef. The sky that had been so leaden and peaceful and like a solid
roof was now all in a hurry, flowing eastward like a great turbulent
river in spate.

And now, again, one could hear the sound in the distance--the thunder
of the captains of the storm and the shouting; but still so faint, so
vague, so indeterminate and unearthly that it seemed like the sound in
a dream.

Emmeline sat amidst the ferns on the floor cowed and dumb, holding the
baby to her breast. It was fast asleep. Dick stood at the doorway. He
was disturbed in mind, but he did not show it.

The whole beautiful island world had now taken on the colour of ashes
and the colour of lead. Beauty had utterly vanished, all seemed sadness
and distress.

The cocoa-palms, under the wind that had lost its steady rush and was
now blowing in hurricane blasts, flung themselves about in all the
attitudes of distress; and whoever has seen a tropical storm will know
what a cocoa-palm can express by its movement