Chapter 35

CHAPTER XXXV.

AN ELECTRIC STORM

_Friday, August 21_. - On the morrow the magnificent geyser hasdisappeared. The wind has risen, and has rapidly carried us away fromAxel Island. The roarings become lost in the distance.

The weather - if we may use that term - will change before long. Theatmosphere is charged with vapours, pervaded with the electricitygenerated by the evaporation of saline waters. The clouds are sinkinglower, and assume an olive hue. The electric light can scarcelypenetrate through the dense curtain which has dropped over thetheatre on which the battle of the elements is about to be waged.

I feel peculiar sensations, like many creatures on earth at theapproach of violent atmospheric changes. The heavily voluted cumulusclouds lower gloomily and threateningly; they wear that implacablelook which I have sometimes noticed at the outbreak of a great storm.The air is heavy; the sea is calm.

In the distance the clouds resemble great bales of cotton, piled upin picturesque disorder. By degrees they dilate, and gain in hugesize what they lose in number. Such is their ponderous weight thatthey cannot rise from the horizon; but, obeying an impulse fromhigher currents, their dense consistency slowly yields. The gloomupon them deepens; and they soon present to our view a ponderous massof almost level surface. From time to time a fleecy tuft of mist,with yet some gleaming light left upon it, drops down upon the densefloor of grey, and loses itself in the opaque and impenetrable mass.

The atmosphere is evidently charged and surcharged with electricity.My whole body is saturated; my hair bristles just as when you standupon an insulated stool under the action of an electrical machine. Itseems to me as if my companions, the moment they touched me, wouldreceive a severe shock like that from an electric eel.

At ten in the morning the symptoms of storm become aggravated. Thewind never lulls but to acquire increased strength; the vast bank ofheavy clouds is a huge reservoir of fearful windy gusts and rushingstorms.

I am loth to believe these atmospheric menaces, and yet I cannot helpmuttering:

"Here's some very bad weather coming on."

The Professor made no answer. His temper is awful, to judge from theworking of his features, as he sees this vast length of oceanunrolling before him to an indefinite extent. He can only spare timeto shrug his shoulders viciously.

"There's a heavy storm coming on," I cried, pointing towards thehorizon. "Those clouds seem as if they were going to crush the sea."

A deep silence falls on all around. The lately roaring winds arehushed into a dead calm; nature seems to breathe no more, and to besinking into the stillness of death. On the mast already I see thelight play of a lambent St. Elmo's fire; the outstretched sailcatches not a breath of wind, and hangs like a sheet of lead. Therudder stands