hich the ship's head was turned. "Darkness
like this don't happen without a cause. I've had some experience o' them
seas before now, an' depend upon it that Vulcan is stirring up some o'
the fires that are always blazin' away, more or less, around the Straits
Settlements."

"By which you mean, I suppose, that one of the numerous volcanoes in the
Malay Archipelago has become active," said Nigel; "but are we not some
five or six hundred miles to the sou'-west of Sunda? Surely the
influence of volcanic action could scarcely reach so far."

"So far!" repeated the captain, with a sort of humph which was meant to
indicate mild contempt; "that shows how little you know, with all your
book-learnin', about volcanoes."

"I don't profess to know much, father," retorted Nigel in a tone of
cheery defiance.

"Why, boy," continued the other, resuming his perambulation of the deck,
"explosions have sometimes been heard for hundreds, ay _hundreds_, of
miles. I thought I heard one just now, but no doubt the unusual
darkness works up my imagination and makes me suspicious, for it's
wonderful what fools the imag--. Hallo! D'ee feel _that_?"

He went smartly towards the binnacle-light, as he spoke, and, holding an
arm close to it, found that his sleeve was sprinkled with a thin coating
of fine dust.

"Didn't I say so?" he exclaimed in some excitement, as he ran to the
cabin skylight and glanced earnestly at the barometer. That glance
caused him to shout a sudden order to take in all sail. At the same
moment a sigh of wind swept over the sleeping sea as if the storm-fiend
were expressing regret at having been so promptly discovered and met.

Seamen are well used to sudden danger--especially in equatorial
seas--and to prompt, unquestioning action. Not many minutes elapsed
before the _Sunshine_ was under the smallest amount of sail she could
carry. Even before this had been well accomplished a stiff breeze was
tearing up the surface of the sea into wild foam, which a furious gale
soon raised into raging billows.

The storm came from the Sunda Straits about which the captain and his
son had just been talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing
but scud before it under almost bare poles. All that night it raged.
Towards morning it increased to such a pitch that one of the back-stays
of the foremast gave way. The result was that the additional strain thus
thrown on the other stays was too much for them. They also parted, and