The Beach of Dreams: A Romance

  CHAPTER XXVI

  THE GREAT WIND

  The sun sank, broadened out and banded with mist beyond the LizardPoint, and before his upper limb had been swallowed by the rocks thebusiness began with a blow from the hills.

  Most winds come in gusts and pauses, this wind from the Infernal Regionscame at first steady and warm, never ceasing, steadily growing like thethrust of an infinite sword driven with a rapidly increasing momentumand a murmur like the voice of Speed herself.

  Raft and the girl saw that the sea elephants were herding up into theshelter of the cliffs and that the gulls had vanished as though they hadnever been.

  And still the wind increased, its voice now a long monotonous cry,steadily sharpening, yet deepening, stern as the Voice of Wrath.

  "It's blowing up," said Raft, "and there's more coming."

  Then over the cliff and undershot by the last rays of sunset came theclouds chased and harried by the wind, tearing before and torn by theteeth of the gale.

  Raft and the girl stood watching till pebbles and rocks the size ofcoconuts began to fall on the beach blown over the cliff edge, till thesea, flat and milk-white, seemed to bend under the stress, till it wouldseem that the very islands would be blown away.

  The girl felt light-headed and giddy as though the rush above hadrarefied the air under the cliffs. Not a drop of rain fell, the windheld the sky and the whole world. It seemed loosed from some mysteriouskeeping never to be recaptured until it had blown the sea away andflattened the earth.

  And still it increased.

  Raft, taking the girl by the arm, drew her back into the cave; she wastrembling. It seemed to her that this was no storm, that something hadgone wrong with the scheme of things, that this Voice steadily beingkeyed up was the voice of some string keeping everything together,stretched to its utmost and sure to snap.

  Then it snapped.

  The whole of Kerguelen seemed to burst like a bomb-shell with a blaze oflight shewing islands and sea.

  Then again it seemed to burst with a light struggling through a deluge.

  The boom of the rain on the sea came between the thunder crashes whilsta giant on the hills seemed to stand steadily working a flashlight, alight so intense that now and again through broken walls of rain theislands could be seen like far white ghosts wreathed in mist.

  They sat down on the floor of the cave and the man put his arm about thegirl as if to protect her; then something came sniffing at them, it wasa little sea elephant that had got astray and scared by the work outsidehad crept in for shelter and company. The girl rested her hand on it andit lay still.

  It seemed to her now that she could hear the gods of the storm as theybattled, hear their cries and breathing and trampling, whilst everymoment a thousand foot giant in full armour would come crashing toearth, knee, shoulder and helmet hitting the rocks in succession.

  "It's a big blow," came Raft's voice, "no call to be scared."

  He was holding her to him like a child whilst she held to her the littlesea elephant, and so they remained, the three of them until the bigblow, failing to tear Kerguelen from its foundations, began to pauselike a spent madman.

  The flashlight man on the hills began to work his apparatus more slowlyand now the thunder seemed doing its vast work away out at sea and allsounds became gradually merged in the enormous, continuous sound of therain.

  The little sea elephant seemed suddenly to take fright at the strangecompany it found itself in and went tumbling and sniffing out to findits mates, whilst through the night came the occasional "woof" of a bullas if giving praise that the worst was over.

  "The old sea cows know it's done," said Raft, "now you'd better getunder your blankets,--you aren't afraid to be alone?"

  "I'm not afraid a bit now," said she. She patted his hand as a childmight and he crawled out and she heard him swearing at the rain as hemade for his hole in the cliff.

  She remembered the porpoises and fell to thinking of what would havehappened had she and Raft started on their expedition yesterday or theday before. That wind, which sent rocks flying on to the beach, wouldhave blown them away.

  She said this next morning as they stood watching the sea. The sea wasworth watching. The due-south wind had stirred the heart of the oceanfrom west of Enderby land, and, like a trumpeter, was leading a vastflood that split on Heard Island only to re-form and burst on thesouthern shores of Kerguelen.

  They could hear the vague far-off roar of it all those leagues awaybeyond the mountains, mixed with the cry of the wind still blowing afull gale, and beyond the shelter of the land they could see the islandsgetting it, bombarded by the waves and up to their shoulders insea-smoke and foam.

  Then as they stood, suddenly and like a thing shot dead, the windceased, and in the silence the roar of the beaches far and near aroselike a fume of sound. Then, as suddenly, the wind came shouting out ofthe west, piling up a cross sea that leapt like the water in a boilingpot.

  "I'm thinking when this blow is over we may have a spell of fineweather," said Raft, "and it will be just as well for us to be makingour plans and getting things ready so's we won't be behind hand when thefine spell comes."

  "I think so too," said she, "we will have to take food with us--howmuch?"

  "Enough for a month," said he, "who knows, we may have to come back, andthere's not much to be had elsewhere." Then he fell into thought for amoment, "maybe stuff for a fortnight will be enough for there's birdsand rabbits to be got, and gulls' eggs. Them old penguins let you screwtheir necks as if it come natural to them, we don't want to take too biga load."

  Then they found themselves at a loss, it was quite easy to arrange totake a fortnight's food, but how much did that mean?

  They determined to use two blankets for sacks and then made a roughcalculation, based on imagination, and collected together tins of meatand vegetables and the remaining biscuits, the result was a burden thattwo people might have carried but not very far.

  "We've overshot it," said Raft.

  "We'll never be able to carry all that," said the girl, "or if we did wewould have to go so slowly that the journey would be much longer--itcuts both ways."

  They reduced the load by nearly a half.

  "There's one thing," said he, "there's no call to take water with us,there's holes full of water everywhere, seems to me in this place."

  Then he turned to look at the weather.

  The wind was less and the clouds were thinning and the air had the feelof a break coming. Then, just before sunset the clouds parted in the westand the sun went down in a sky red as blood.

  "We'll start tomorrow," said Raft.