literally tremble beneath my feet. But
the lightning was not confined to discharges from the cloud overhead, it
was darting earthward all round us, and practically at all distances
from zenith to horizon; and so frequent were the discharges that the
illumination from them was continuous, revealing a vault packed with
enormous masses of heavy, black, writhing cloud. I stood for perhaps
five minutes fascinated by the spectacle of the vivid lightning-play;
and then, just as the native woman came out to announce that my supper
was ready, down came the rain in a perfect deluge; and in a moment the
eaves of the house, the foliage of the trees, and the earth itself
poured with soft, warm water. It was too good an opportunity to be
wasted, so I hurried to my own room, threw off my clothes, seized a
morsel of soap, and, dashing out to the midst of the downpour, treated
myself to a most delightful and refreshing bath, as a preliminary to
supper.

The rain continued for about half an hour, and then it ceased with that
abruptness which seems so characteristic of the tropics. But it had
scarcely come to an end when there arose a loud rustling of leaves among
the trees in the garden and round about the house, a blast of hot wind
poured in through the open doors and windows, violently slamming the
former and causing the latter to rattle furiously; and I had barely time
to rush and close them all when a terrific squall came roaring down upon
the bungalow. This squall was only the precursor of several that
followed each other at rapidly decreasing intervals until those
intervals became so brief as to be no longer distinguishable, and the
wind settled into a roaring gale from the westward that blew all night
and did not break until close upon noon next day.

As luck would have it, I had chosen the eastern slope of the peak as the
site upon which to erect the bungalow, consequently the structure was,
to a very great extent, sheltered from the gale by the hill behind it;
but, even so, the building quivered and shook under the stroke of the
blasts. And my heart sank as I thought of the wreck, for I felt that
she had not one chance in a thousand of weathering it out. She was on
what was now the windward reef--as it had been when she struck upon it;
the surf would pile up on the reef again, raising the level of the water
by perhaps three or four feet, and in that case the poor old _Yorkshire
Lass_ would be washed off the coral into th