Chapter 34

CHAPTER XXXIV.

DECEMBER 21st.--No further disturbance has taken place amongst
the men. For a few hours the fish appeared again, and we caught
a great many of them, and stored them away in an empty barrel.
This addition to our stock of provisions makes us hope that food,
at least, will not fail us.

Usually the nights in the tropics are cool, but to-day, as
evening drew on, the wonted freshness did not return, but the,
air remained stifling and oppressive, whilst heavy masses of
vapour hung over the water.

There was no moonlight; there would be a new moon at half-past
one in the morning, but the night was singularly dark, except for
dazzling flashes of summer lightning that from time to time
illumined the horizon far and wide. There was, however, no
answering roll of thunder, and the silence of the atmosphere
seemed almost awful, For a couple of hours, in the vain hope of
catching a breath of air, Miss Herbey, Andre Letourneur, and I,
sat watching the imposing struggle of the electric vapours. The
clouds appeared like embattled turrets crested with flame, and
the very sailors, coarse-minded men as they were, seemed struck
with the grandeur of the spectacle, and regarded attentively,
though with an anxious eye, the preliminary tokens of a coming
storm. Until midnight we kept our seats upon the stern of the
raft, whilst the lightning ever and again shed around us a livid
glare similar to that produced by adding salt to lighted alcohol.

"Are you afraid of a storm, Miss Herbey?" said Andre to the
girl.

"No, Mr. Andre, my feelings are always rather those of awe than
of fear," she replied. "I consider a storm one of the sublimest
phenomena that we can behold--don't you think so too?"

"Yes, and especially when the thunder is pealing," he said; "that
majestic rolling, far different to the sharp crash of artillery,
rises and falls like the long-drawn notes of the grandest music,
and I can safely say that the tones of the most accomplished
ARTISTE have never moved me like that incomparable voice of
nature."

"Rather a deep bass, though," I said, laughing.

"That may be," he answered; "but I wish we might hear it now, for
this silent lightning is somewhat unexpressive"

"Never mind that, Andre" I said; "enjoy a storm when it comes, if
you like, but pray don't wish for it."

"And why not?" said he; "a storm will bring us wind, you know."

"And water, too," added Miss Herbey, "the water of which we are
so seriously in need."

The young people evidently wished to regard the storm from their
own point of view, and although I could have opposed plenty of
common sense to their poetical sentiments, I said no more, but
let them talk on