CHAPTER XIV. 



THE vivid contrast between the weather of the two pre- 

 ceding days might well have exhausted the meteorological 

 vagaries of even this inhospitable coast, but when we 

 turned out next morning we found another phase of its 

 eccentricities in store for us. 



All signs of fog had vanished and the sun shone out 

 brightly from a clear blue sky ; but it was blowing half a 

 gale from the north-west, which gradually increased as the 

 day advanced. Hunting was, of course, an impossibility. We 

 saw the Flying Mist and Otsego, anchored in deeper water 

 than ourselves, clear out of what we called Cygnet Harbour 

 doubtless on the lucus a non lucendo principle, as there was 

 not the sign of a harbour or anything like it and run down 

 the coast. At about four in the afternoon we followed 

 their example, but could make nothing of the weather, and 

 at half-past nine we had to bring up in such anchorage as 

 we could obtain a few miles south of our last position. 



A heavy swell set in during the night, during which we 

 spent an anxious time, for the short season was already far 

 advanced, and to be blown out to sea and lose touch of the 

 coast might mean days before we regained it. But our 

 anchor held. The wind woollied down the mountain sides 

 with terrific violence, lulling somewhat at times, but only to 

 gain additional strength with each blast, as if intent to hurl 

 us seaward. 



One might have thought that the spirit legions of departed 

 Samurai, far from their sunny southern shores, had found 

 at once a fitting purgatory for their lives in this inhospitable 

 land of mist and tempest, and their expiation in its defence. 



M 2 



