As the captain spoke, a tremendous outburst on Krakatoa turned their minds to other subjects.  They were by that time drawing near to the island, and the thunders of the eruption seemed to shake not only the heavens but even the great ocean itself.  Though the hour was not much past noon the darkness soon became so dense that it was difficult to perceive objects a few yards distant, and, as pieces of stone the size of walnuts, or even larger, began to fall on the deck, the captain sent Kathleen below.

“There’s no saying where or when a big stone may fall, my girl,” he said, “and it’s not the habit of Englishmen to let women come under fire, so you’ll be safer below.  Besides, you’ll be able to see something of what’s goin’ on out o’ the cabin windows.”

With the obedience that was natural to her, Kathleen went down at once, and the captain made everything as snug as possible, battening down the hatches and shortening sail so as to be ready for whatever might befall.

“I don’t like the look o’ things, Mr. Moor,” said the captain when the second mate came on deck to take his watch.

“No more do I, sir,” answered Mr. Moor calmly.

The aspect of things was indeed very changeable.  Sometimes, as we have said, all nature seemed to be steeped in thick darkness, at other times the fires of the volcano blazed upward, spreading a red glare on the rolling clouds and over the heaving sea.  Lightning also played its part as well as thunder, but the latter was scarcely distinguishable from the volcano’s roar.  Three days before Sunday the 26th of August, Captain Roy—­as well as the crews of several other vessels that were in Sunda Straits at the time—­had observed a marked though gradual increase in the violence of the eruption.  On that day, as we read in the Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society, about 1 P.M. the detonations caused by the explosive action attained such violence as to be heard at Batavia, about 100 English miles away.  At 2 P.M. of the same day, Captain Thompson of the Medea, when about 76 miles E.N.E. of the island, saw a black mass rising like clouds of smoke to a height which has been estimated at no less than 17 miles!  And the detonations were at that time taking place at intervals of ten minutes.  But, terrible though these explosions must have been, they were but as the whisperings of the volcano.  An hour later they had increased so much as to be heard at Bandong and other places 150 miles away, and at 5 P.M. they had become so tremendous as to be heard over the whole island of Java, the eastern portion of which is about 650 miles from Krakatoa.

And the sounds thus heard were not merely like distant thunder.  In Batavia—­although, as we have said, 100 miles off—­they were so violent during the whole of that terrible Sunday night as to prevent the people from sleeping.  They were compared to the “discharge of artillery close at hand,” and caused a rattling of doors, windows, pictures, and chandeliers.