South Sea Tales | Page 9

ground. The wind
had yet again increased. His own tree showed that. It no longer swayed
or bent over and back. Instead, it remained practically stationary,
curved in a rigid angle from the wind and merely vibrating. But the
vibration was sickening. It was like that of a tuning-fork or the tongue
of a jew's-harp. It was the rapidity of the vibration that made it so bad.
Even though its roots held, it could not stand the strain for long.
Something would have to break.
Ah, there was one that had gone. He had not seen it go, but there it
stood, the remnant, broken off half-way up the trunk. One did not know
what happened unless he saw it. The mere crashing of trees and wails
of human despair occupied no place in that mighty volume of sound.
He chanced to be looking in Captain Lynch's direction when it
happened. He saw the trunk of the tree, half-way up, splinter and part
without noise. The head of the tree, with three sailors of the Aorai and
the old captain sailed off over the lagoon. It did not fall to the ground,
but drove through the air like a piece of chaff. For a hundred yards he
followed its flight, when it struck the water. He strained his eyes, and
was sure that he saw Captain Lynch wave farewell.

Raoul did not wait for anything more. He touched the native and made
signs to descend to the ground. The man was willing, but his women
were paralayzed from terror, and he elected to remain with them. Raoul
passed his rope around the tree and slid down. A rush of salt water went
over his head. He held his breath and clung desperately to the rope. The
water subsided, and in the shelter of the trunk he breathed once more.
He fastened the rope more securely, and then was put under by another
sea. One of the women slid down and joined him, the native remaining
by the other woman, the two children, and the cat.
The supercargo had noticed how the groups clinging at the bases of the
other trees continually diminished. Now he saw the process work out
alongside him. It required all his strength to hold on, and the woman
who had joined him was growing weaker. Each time he emerged from a
sea he was surprised to find himself still there, and next, surprised to
find the woman still there. At last he emerged to find himself alone. He
looked up. The top of the tree had gone as well. At half its original
height, a splintered end vibrated. He was safe. The roots still held,
while the tree had been shorn of its windage. He began to climb up. He
was so weak that he went slowly, and sea after sea caught him before
he was above them. Then he tied himself to the trunk and stiffened his
soul to face the night and he knew not what.
He felt very lonely in the darkness. At times it seemed to him that it
was the end of the world and that he was the last one left alive. Still the
wind increased. Hour after hour it increased. By what he calculated was
eleven o'clock, the wind had become unbelievable. It was a horrible,
monstrous thing, a screaming fury, a wall that smote and passed on but
that continued to smite and pass on--a wall without end. It seemed to
him that he had become light and ethereal; that it was he that was in
motion; that he was being driven with inconceivable velocity through
unending solidness. The wind was no longer air in motion. It had
become substantial as water or quicksilver. He had a feeling that he
could reach into it and tear it out in chunks as one might do with the
meat in the carcass of a steer; that he could seize hold of the wind and
hang on to it as a man might hang on to the face of a cliff.

The wind strangled him. He could not face it and breathe, for it rushed
in through his mouth and nostrils, distending his lungs like bladders. At
such moments it seemed to him that his body was being packed and
swollen with solid earth. Only by pressing his lips to the trunk of the
tree could he breathe. Also, the ceaseless impact of the wind exhausted
him. Body and brain became wearied. He no longer observed, no
longer thought, and was but semiconscious. One idea constituted his
consciousness: SO THIS WAS A HURRICANE. That one idea
persisted irregularly. It was like a feeble flame that flickered
occasionally. From a state of stupor he would return to it--SO THIS
WAS A HURRICANE. Then he