tor. All the boats
were hauled up to places of safety, and every other preparation was
made. Down it came, on the afternoon o' the 28th--worse than they had
expected. Many of the storehouses and mills had been lately renewed or
built. They were all gutted and demolished. Everything movable was
swept away like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were
cleared among the palm-trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to
perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it snapped
trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop down from
above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean away,
leaving the surrounding trees untouched. Sometimes it would select a
tree of thirty years growth, seize it, spin it round, and leave it a
permanent spiral screw. I was in these regions about the time, and had
the account from a native who had gone through it all and couldn't speak
of it except with glaring eyeballs and gasping breath.

"About midnight of the 28th the gale was at its worst. Darkness that
could be felt between the flashes of lightning. Thunder that was nearly
drowned by the roaring of the wind an' the crashing of everything all
round. To save their lives the people had to fling themselves into
ditches and hollows of the ground. Mr Ross and some of his people were
lying in the shelter of a wall near his house. There had been a
schooner lying not far off. When Mr Ross raised his head cautiously
above the wall to have a look to wind'ard he saw the schooner comin'
straight for him on the top of a big wave. `Hold on!' he shouted, fell
flat down, and laid hold o' the nearest bush. Next moment the wave
burst right over the wall, roared on up to the garden, 150 yards above
high-water mark, and swept his house clean away! By good fortune the
wall stood the shock, and the schooner stuck fast just before reachin'
it, but so near that the end of the jib-boom passed right over the place
where the household lay holdin' on for dear life and half drowned. It
was a tremendous night," concluded the captain, "an' nearly everything
on the islands was wrecked, but they've survived it, as you'll see.
Though it's seven years since that cyclone swep' over them, they're all
right and goin' ahead again, full swing, as if nothin' had happened."

"And is Ross the Third still king?" asked Nigel with much interest.

"Ay--at least he was king a few years ago when I passed this way and ha