CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WATER-SPOUT.

As the sun increased in heat, notwithstanding the season of the year, I was soon sensible of the comfort of white clothing, when contrasted with dark woollen or broadcloth, as the latter absorbs, and the former repels the rays of the sun.

Marc Hislop illustrated this to me by igniting paper with a burning-glass; whenever the focus was brought to bear upon dark places, such as the printed letters, they were instantly consumed.

We ran along the coast of Hispaniola, and saw the wavy ridges of its mountains that tower into the clouds; we sighted Tortuga, a rocky island covered with palm-trees and sandal-wood, but surrounded by reefs and shoals; and rounding Cape St. Nicholas, stood to the southward between the great islands of Jamaica and Cuba, but without seeing either of them at that time.

For three days we had dark and cloudy weather.

About three P.M. on the 24th of January, a small speck, which appeared to the westward on our weather beam, grew rapidly into a gloomy cloud, and swiftly, as if on the wings of a destroying angel, it traversed the thickening air and the agitated sea, which darkened beneath its shadow; and so this speck came on, until it grew an awful thunder-cloud.

"Bear a hand fore and aft! Hurrah, my lads!--make all snug before the tempest breaks!" were the cheering orders of Weston, Hislop, and Lambourne, as the brig was prepared to encounter a heavy squall.

The rain soon fell in torrents, impeding the men at their work of close reefing, furling, and stowing some of the heavier canvas, and in tightly belaying the running rigging; for when loose ropes are flying about in a tempest, and cracking in men's faces like coach-whips, they become sufficiently bewildering to impede the working of the ship.

Under the lower edge of the approaching cloud, when about twelve miles distant, we beheld an object which filled us with wonder and awe.

It was a tremendous spout, or column of water, connected with the cloud above, and the sea below (the sea, from which a circular wind had sucked it upward), that was now visible.

This column was like a solid mass of white breakers, approaching with incredible speed over waves that began to rise in short and pyramidal peaks.

Hislop was too busy clewing up canvas, sending yards down from aloft, belaying and ordering, and so lost a famous opportunity for expatiating--as no doubt he would have done--on the _theory_ of these spouts; for this phenomenon filled us with the greatest alarm, lest it might swoop down upon the _Eugenie_, dismast and destroy her like a child's toy-ship.

Antonio el Cubano, being the most powerful and muscular man on board, was ordered to the wheel.

Across the sea this column seemed to pass with the cloud, boiling, foaming, and with the sound of a mighty cascade pouring into a deep valley, but yet maintaining a position quite perpendicular. Around its base the waves seemed in dreadful commotion, rising and falling, seething and glittering in the lightning which shot at times from the gloomy bosom of the cloud that floated over them.

As this terrible phenomenon approached from the westward, Captain Weston conceived that we might escape its influence by altering the brig's course, and so passing it. I have heard of water-spouts being dissipated by the effect of heavily-shotted guns; but we had no such appliances--at least we had no shot on board.

The breeze which was blowing fresh, and had not as yet become a gale (to us at least), veered north-westerly; so we shook the reefs out of our topsails and trimmed sharp by the wind.

"Luff, luff--keep your luff--keep her to," were the incessant orders of Weston; and the _Eugenie_ flew through the water like a race-horse; held by the powerful hands of Antonio, she never yawed an inch; and by especial Providence she got _to windward_ of that dreadful phenomenon, which passed us, cloud and all, about six miles astern, when as it changed color, from grayish green to white, it presented a scene so sublime and terrible, that "the boldest held his breath for a time;" and Antonio, who was blanched white with terror, though he had frequently seen such spouts in these, his native seas, assured me, with chattering teeth, that he had never beheld one of such magnitude; and it was long before he could be certain of our safety, and ceased to mutter,--

"O mala ventura--mala ventura!" (literally, bad luck.)

From white, the water-spout became dusky purple, when a gleam of the setting sun fell on it, and the waves at its base glittered in all the colors of the rainbow.

"Thank heaven! that is past," said Weston.

"Ay, sir," said old Roberts, the man-o'-war's man, "it is enough to make one's hair stand on end for a week."

"Had we been twenty minutes' sail _astern_, we could not have escaped it!" said Hislop; "but we have handled the brig beautifully. That ugly Spaniard at the wheel was worth his weight in gold just now!"

For nearly an hour the sea was greatly agitated; but as the _Eugenie_, still braced sharp to the wind, flew from one long roller to another, we rapidly got into smooth water. The barometer rose quickly; the vapors dispersed; and when the setting sun gave us a parting smile from the far horizon, the storm-cloud and its water-spout had disappeared together, or melted away in the distant sea.

The little eddies of wind, which on a fine summer morning may be seen whirling up the dust and dry leaves in circles on a road, are exactly on the same principle as those mighty phenomena which become tornadoes, cyclones, and water-spouts, when they reach the ocean, where they may easily dismast and perhaps sink the largest line-of-battle ship.

Those spouts rise from the sea exactly like the moving pillars of sand, which the whirlwinds sweep from the hot and arid deserts of Africa and Arabia.

About six bells (_i.e._, seven P.M.), this escape was followed by a dead calm, which lasted till midnight, and during that time we talked of nothing but the skill with which we had got the weathergage of that column of foam. As the sun set, with a rapidity peculiar to these latitudes, the brilliant tints he shed on sea and sky changed with equal speed from gold to saffron, from these to vivid purple, and from thence to the hue of sapphire.

The sensation of loneliness which the departure of the sun excites in the breast of a landsman at sea is peculiar; but this was soon chased from mine by the splendor of the rising moon, which changed the sapphire tints of sea and sky to liquid silver and the clearest blue.

Above, no cloud, nor even the tiniest shred of vapor was visible. Sea blended with sky at the horizon, and seemed to melt into each other, so that no line was traceable. Save a planet or two, twinkling with less light than usual, there seemed to be no stars in heaven, for the glory of the full-orbed moon eclipsed them all; her light fell brightly on the white sails of the _Eugenie_, and in it the features of our faces were distinct as at noon-day, and now it was the noon of night.

About twelve o'clock a fresh breeze sprung up, and the ship's course was resumed.

"By keeping the weathergage, and beyond the circle of the spout's attraction, we escaped without shipping a drop of water!" said Weston, for the twentieth time. "Let me see how you enter all this in the log, Hislop."

"It is no uncommon thing for a craft at sea to be deluged by a spout of _fresh_ water, which the whirlwind has torn up from an inland lake," said Hislop; "and houses, far in-shore, have in the same fashion been deluged by salt water absorbed from the sea;--and hence the showers of dried herrings, of which we have heard so much at times. Now, Rodney, you will perhaps be surprised when I tell you, that it is the winds which produce a calm like that we have had tonight."

"The winds!" I reiterated, surprised at such a paradox from our theorist.

"Yes. The opposition of winds will at times produce a perfect calm, and then when rain falls it is always gentle and equable; but when clouds seem to move _against_ the lower winds, or when streams of air denote a variety of the aerial current, and consequently the approach of rain----"

"What strange sound is that ahead, or at least, forward?" said Weston, interrupting Hislop, who would perhaps have theorized for an hour.

"It is Antonio, groaning in his sleep in the forecastle," said Ned Carleton, who was at the wheel.

"I wish the ship were rid of him and his dreams," added Hislop, testily. "Well, as I was saying, when the adverse movements of the clouds seem to denote----"

"Light a-head!" cried a voice from the bow.

"Is that you, Roberts?" asked Weston, while Hislop stamped with vexation at the second interruption.

"Yes, sir."

"How does it bear?"

"East-north-east."

"Then it is Cape St. Antonio Light, the most western point of Cuba," said Weston, with confidence and pleasure in his tone. "I thought I could smell the land with the first cat's paw, before the breeze freshened."

The light, dim and distant like a star, was now seen to twinkle among the waves at the horizon.

For more than an hour I remained on deck with my eyes fixed upon that feeble but increasing beacon, which indicated a foreign shore; then I went below and turned in, with a sigh of pleasure that the voyage was nearly over, and a hope that when I traversed those waves again, I should be on my return home--home to my father and mother, to Sybil and Dot,--to the old Rectory, with its shady oak-grove, its green lawn, and the masses of ivy, woodbine, and honeysuckle that shaded its time-worn walls.