cared to death. But the queerest part of it all was the water itself.
It was hot--not so hot that our feet could not stand it when it washed
over the deck, but hot enough to make us think that it had been heated
by some kind of a fire.

"Well that sort of thing went on hour after hour. The waves, the
lightning, the hot water and the sharks, and all the rest of the odd
things happening, frightened the crew out of their wits. Some of them
prayed out loud--I guess the first time they ever did in their lives.
Some Frenchmen aboard kept running around and yelling, 'Cest le dernier
jour!' (This is the last day.) We were all worried. Even the officers
began to think that the world was coming to an end. Mighty strange
things happen on the sea, but this topped them all.

"I kept to the bridge all night. When the first hour of morning came
the storm was still going on. We were all pretty much tired out by that
time, but there was no such thing as trying to sleep. The waves still
were batting us around and we didn't know whether we were one mile or
a thousand miles from shore. At 2 o'clock in the morning all the queer
goings on stopped just the way they began--all of a sudden. We lay to
until daylight; then we took our reckonings and started off again. We
were about 700 miles off Cape Henlopen.

"No, sir; you couldn't get me through a thing like that again for
$10,000. None of us was hurt, and the old Nordby herself pulled through
all right, but I'd sooner stay ashore than see waves without wind and
lightning without thunder."

FIERY STREAM CONTAINED POISONOUS GASES

Careful inspection showed that the fiery stream which so completely
destroyed St. Pierre must have been composed of poisonous gases, which
instantly suffocated every one who inhaled them, and of other gases
burning furiously, for nearly all the victims had their hands covering
their mouths, or were in some other attitude showing that they had
perished from suffocation.

It is believed that Mont Pelee threw off a great gasp of some
exceedingly heavy and noxious gas, something akin to firedamp, which
settled upon the city and rendered the inhabitants insensible. This was
followed by the sheet of flame that swept down the side of the mountain.
This theory is sustained by the experience of the survivors who were
taken from the ships in the harbor, as they say that their first
experience was one of faintness.

The dumb animals were wiser than man, and early too