MILORD THE WEATHER 



In late afternoon the sulphur and smoky-black 

 shut down a little and the world became more and 

 more somber. Then, to show us what it could do, 

 Weather ripped the curtains apart and we were 

 blinded with a glorious sunset of rose peach and 

 sheer gold, setting on fire all the drops and salt 

 crystals in the world, and for a time my ears refused 

 to continue to register the uproar, so deadening to 

 all other senses was the superlative brilliance and 

 splendor of color in the west. It was quenched as 

 abruptly as it appeared, and now when the low- 

 hanging menace of whirling clouds showed a rent 

 or a tear, the clear sky beyond was a sickening green. 



Weather pondered for a moment, and then 

 turned on the rain and for two hours it poured, yet 

 the waves and wind never ceased. We battened 

 down all windows and blinds and had settled to a 

 long evening of work when word came up that the 

 Sea-Fern, our breakwater, and the wharf were 

 flooded. 



We rushed down and by the flickering light of 

 electric torches saw a hundred possessions bobbing 

 about or drifting off on the raging tide — boxes, 

 diving-helmets, barrels of gasoline, buoys, fish 

 traps. Our strongest swimmer took a rope out to 

 the most valuable and we hauled them back. The 

 tide had still three hours to rise. 



Posting a watch on the launch, I returned, and 

 went the rounds every hour until three-thirty, when 

 a sinister scarlet eye appeared on the signal station 

 three miles away — warning that a hurricane was 



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