e
tempest howling without, the fire between us sputtering with raindrops.
Our thoughts were far away with the poor fellows on the schooner, or my
not less unhappy uncle, houseless on the promontory; and yet ever and
again we were startled back to ourselves, when the wind would rise and
strike the gable like a solid body, or suddenly fall and draw away, so
that the fire leaped into flame and our hearts bounded in our sides. Now
the storm in its might would seize and shake the four corners of the
roof, roaring like Leviathan in anger. Anon, in a lull, cold eddies of
tempest moved shudderingly in the room, lifting the hair upon our heads
and passing between us as we sat. And again the wind would break forth
in a chorus of melancholy sounds, hooting low in the chimney, wailing
with flutelike softness round the house.

It was perhaps eight o'clock when Rorie came in and pulled me
mysteriously to the door. My uncle, it appeared, had frightened even his
constant comrade; and Rorie, uneasy at his extravagance, prayed me to
come out and share the watch. I hastened to do as I was asked; the more
readily as, what with fear and horror, and the electrical tension of the
night, I was myself restless and disposed for action. I told Mary to be
under no alarm, for I should be a safeguard on her father; and wrapping
myself warmly in a plaid, I followed Rorie into the open air.

The night, though we were so little past midsummer, was as dark as
January. Intervals of a groping twilight alternated with spells of utter
blackness; and it was impossible to trace the reason of these changes in
the flying horror of the sky. The wind blew the breath out of a man's
nostrils; all heaven seemed to thunder overhead like one huge sail; and
when there fell a momentary lull on Aros, we could hear the gusts
dismally sweeping in the distance. Over all the lowlands of the Ross,
the wind must have blown as fierce as on the open sea; and God only knows
the uproar that was raging around the head of Ben Kyaw. Sheets of
mingled spray and rain were driven in our faces. All round the isle of
Aros the surf, with an incessant, hammering thunder, beat upon the reefs
and beaches. Now louder in one place, now lower in another, like the
combinations of orchestral music, the constant mass of sound was hardly
varied for a moment. And loud above all this hurly-burly I could hear
the changeful voices of the Roost and the intermittent roaring of the
Merry Men.