Absorbed in following the course of the boat, we had scarcely noticed the huddled inky clouds that sagged down all around us.  From these threatening masses, seamed at intervals with pale lightning, there now burst a heavy peal of thunder that shook the ground under our feet.  A sudden squall struck the sea, ploughing deep white furrows into it, and at the same instant a single piercing shriek rose above the tempest—­the frightened cry of a gull swooping over the island.  How it startled us!

It was impossible any longer to keep our footing on the beach.  The wind and the breakers would have swept us into the ocean if we had not clung to each other with the desperation of drowning men.  Taking advantage of a momentary lull, we crawled up the sands on our hands and knees, and, pausing in the lee of the granite ledge to gain breath, returned to the camp, where we found that the gale had snapped all the fastenings of the tent but one.  Held by this, the puffed-out canvas swayed in the wind like a balloon.  It was a task of some difficulty to secure it, which we did by beating down the canvas with the oars.

After several trials, we succeeded in setting up the tent on the leeward side of the ledge.  Blinded by the vivid flashes of lightning, and drenched by the rain, which fell in torrents, we crept, half dead with fear and anguish, under our flimsy shelter.  Neither the anguish nor the fear was on our own account, for we were comparatively safe, but for poor little Binny Wallace, driven out to sea in the merciless gale.  We shuddered to think of him in that frail shell, drifting on and on to his grave, the sky rent with lightning over his head, and the green abysses yawning beneath him.  We fell to crying, the three of us, and cried I know not how long.

Meanwhile the storm raged with augmented fury.  We were obliged to hold on to the ropes of the tent to prevent it blowing away.  The spray from the river leaped several yards up the rocks and clutched at us malignantly.  The very island trembled with the concussions of the sea beating upon it, and at times I fancied that it had broken loose from its foundation, and was floating off with us.  The breakers, streaked with angry phosphorus, were fearful to look at.

The wind rose higher and higher, cutting long slits in the tent, through which the rain poured incessantly.  To complete the sum of our miseries, the night was at hand.  It came down suddenly, at last, like a curtain, shutting in Sandpeep island from all the world.

It was a dirty night, as the sailors say.  The darkness was something that could be felt as well as seen—­it pressed down upon one with a cold, clammy touch.  Gazing into the hollow blackness, all sorts of imaginable shapes seemed to start forth from vacancy—­brilliant colors, stars, prisms, and dancing lights.  What boy, lying awake at night, has not amused or terrified himself by peopling the spaces around his bed with these phenomena of his own eyes?