During a brief moment his fate hung in the balance. For it was plain that the ashes, if unwetted, might ultimately have been blown away by the wind. But what was going to happen when all this mud, baked by the sun into the hardness of brick, covered the island? Perhaps the Saint was only putting their tempers to the test. The experiment of another shout was worth trying. One could always punish him later on. So feeble was the noise that Saint Dodekanus must have had uncommonly good ears. He had. And soon showed his real feelings. Rain fell once more. Instead of diminishing it grew more violent, accompanied by warm blasts of wind. There was sunshine overhead, but the peaks were shrouded in scudding vapours, trees bent under the force of the wind; the sea, a welter of light and shade, was dappled with silvery patches under the swiftly careering clouds. Soon there came a blinding downpour. Gullies were blocked up with mud; rills carried tons of it into the sea. Then the gale died down; the sun beamed out of a bright evening sky. The miraculous shower was over. Men walked abroad and recognized their beloved Nepenthe once more. It glowed in the tenderest hues. The events of morning and midday were like a bad dream. Everything sparkled with unaccustomed brilliance; the land was refreshed--swept clean; the sea alone remained discoloured to a dingy brown. Truly, as the Commissioner--once more a sound Protestant--remarked in later years: "The old rotter came up to the scratch that time." So clear and pleasant was the air that it seemed as if the wind had actually veered to the north. But no. It still blew from the other quarter--the old familiar sirocco. Which proved that the shower of ashes had not been "carried elsewhere," as the youthful teacher of mathematics had prognosticated. It had not been carried anywhere. It simply ceased to fall, the volcano having momentarily run out of its stock of objectionable materials. The Clubmen therefore, calling to mind the discussion of the morning, were led to revise their opinion as to that gentleman's intelligence. They remembered one or two things. They remembered that even when Heavenly Powers are not known to be directly interested in the event, eruptions now and then come to an end quite irrespective of the wind--a contingency which had not been foreseen in the acute young Scandinavian's computations. "That comes," they said, "of studying the higher mathematics...."