oys;
Willis was known to be a first-rate seaman; so great, indeed, was his
skill in steering amongst reefs and shoals, that he was familiarly
styled the "Pilot," by which cognomen he was better known on board
than any other. At the particular request of Wolston, who had some
communications to make to him respecting his son, Willis remained on
shore, the captain promising to send his gig for him and his two
passengers the following morning.

Whilst Wolston was busy charging the pilot with a multitude of
messages for his son, Mrs. Becker was invoking the blessings of Heaven
upon the heads of her two boys; praying that the hour might be
deferred that was to separate her from these idols of her soul. Becker
himself, upon whom his position, as head of the family, imposed the
obligation of exhibiting, at least outwardly, more courage, instilled
into their minds such principles of truth and rules of conduct as the
solemnity of the moment was calculated to engrave on their hearts.

The dial now marked three o'clock, tropical time. Willis, wiping, with
the cuff of his jacket, a drop that trickled from the corner of his
eye, laid hold of his seal-skin sou'-wester as a signal of immediate
departure. Ernest and Frank were bending their heads to receive the
parting benediction of their parents, when suddenly a fierce torrent
of wind shook the gallery of Rockhouse to its foundation, and uprooted
some of the bamboo columns by which it was supported.

"Only a squall," said Willis quietly.

"A squall!" exclaimed Becker, "what do you call a hurricane then?"

"Oh, a hurricane, I mean a downright reefer, all square and
close-hauled, that is a very different affair; but, after all, this
begins to look very like the real article."

Now came a succession of gusts, each succeeding one more powerful than
its predecessor, till every beam of the gallery bent and quivered;
dense copper-colored clouds appeared in the atmosphere, rolling
against each other, and disengaging by their shock, the thunder and
lightnings. Then fell, not the slender needles of water we call rain,
but veritable floods, that were to our heaviest European showers what
the cataracts of the Rhine, at Staubach, or the falls of Niagara, are
to the gushings of a sylvan rivulet. In a few minutes the Jackal river
had converted the valley into a lake, in which the plantations and
buildings appeared to be afloat, and rendering egress from Rockhouse
nearly impossible.

However