Here he was sheltered in a way.  The only two good words that can be said for a hurricane are that it gives sufficient warning of its approach, and that it blows from one point of the compass at a time.  Alexander sat there panting and watched the wild battle in mid-air of shingles, fences, thatched roofs, and tree-tops; listened to the artillery of the storm, which, with a stone building to break its steady roar, sounded as if a hundred cannon were bombarding the walls and rattling here and there on their carriages meanwhile; listened to crash after crash of tree and wall, the terrified bowlings and bellowings of beasts, the shrieking and grinding of trees, the piercing monotone of the dry seeds in their cases of parchment, the groans and prayers of the negroes in the cellar behind him.  He turned his head and looked through the windows of the great apartment, which, although above ground, was supposed to be safest in a hurricane.  All but the western blinds being closed, the cellar was almost dark, but Alexander knew that it was packed:  doubtless every African on the estate was there; he could see, for some distance back, row after row of rolling eyes and hanging tongues.  Some knelt on the shoulders of others to get the air.  Alexander shuddered.  The sight reminded him of his uncle’s slave-ships, where the blacks came, chained together, standing in the hold, so closely packed that if one died he could not fall, nor the others protect themselves from the poisons of a corpse, which pressed hard against the living for twenty hours perhaps, before it was unchained and flung to the sharks.  Alexander went close to one of the windows and shouted to them not to forget to secure the western blinds when the lull came, then ran up the steps and vaulted through an open window.  It was a few minutes before he found his aunt, and it must be recorded that on his way to the front of the house he looked under two beds and into four wardrobes.  He came upon her in the drawing-room, valiantly struggling with a hurricane window.  Her hair was dishevelled, and her eyes bulged with horror, but even as Alexander came to the rescue, she shoved the bar into place.  Then she threw herself into his arms and fainted.  He had but time to fling water on her face, when a loud rattle from another window sent him bounding to it, and for ten minutes he struggled to fasten the blind soundly again, while it seemed to him that a hundred malignant fingers were tugging at its edge.  He had no sooner secured it, than his aunt’s voice at his ear begged him to try every window on three sides of the house, and he went rapidly from one to the other, finding most of them in need of attention—­long disuse had weakened both staples and hooks.  His aunt trotted after him, thumping every window, and reminding him that if one went, and the wind burst in, the roof would be off and the torrents upon them before they could reach the cellar.