broken by some remark about the weather, or when one or other of the men
came in from making the round of the house to see how things were going
on.

My father sat in restless anxiety about the store-house, and about his
yacht lying down in the bay, which, because of the heavy seas which came
in, in spite of the harbour's good position, had been trebly moored in
the afternoon. I saw him several times fold his hands as if in prayer,
and then, as if cheered, walk up and down the room for a while, until
anxiety again overcame him, and he sat down looking straight before him,
gloomy and pale as before.

The storm rather increased than abated. Once we heard a dull thud, which
might well have come from the storehouse. I saw drops of perspiration
standing on my father's forehead, and was deeply pained to see his
anguish of mind, without being able to do anything to help him.

A little while after he went out into the office with a candle and came
back with an old large-type prayer-book, in which he turned to a prayer
and a hymn to be sung during a storm at sea.

All the servants without being called, gathered in the parlour for
family worship.

My father sat with the prayer-book in his great rough hands, which he
had folded on the table before him, between the two candles. First he
read the prayer, and then sang all the verses of the hymn, while those
of us who knew the tune joined by degrees in the refrain. It was
altogether as if we were holding prayers in a ship's cabin while the
vessel was in danger, and my father must have had the idea from some
such scene in his hard youth. During prayers we all thought the storm
abated a little, and that it only began again after they were ended.

We found the elder Martinez on his knees by his bedside, perpetually
crossing himself before a crucifix. He had less reason for anxiety than
we, for his brig lay with extra moorings under land in a little creek
sheltered from the wind and waves. He very much regretted now, however,
that he had not gone on board to his son and the men.

Towards morning the storm abated a little, and, tired as we were, we
went to bed, while two of the servants still sat up.

It was about ten o'clock in the morning, when it began to grow light,
that we could first see the destruction done. Several hundred tiles
from the house roof lay spread over the yard, part of the outer
pannelling of the wall on the windward side was torn away, and the end
of the p