The breeze was light and they made slow headway, and it was evidently going to be a long sail to the island. As the sun went down, huge black clouds began to roll up the sky, traversed by lightning, while the low growl of thunder foretold a coming storm. As the clouds rose higher and higher the lightning became more vivid, and the thunder broke with startling peals along the water, and soon the rain came down in torrents, drenching them to the skin. The waves began to rise while darkness, black as midnight, settled down on the lake. The little craft tossed wildly on the water, and the prospect before them looked gloomy enough. Fortunately, about midnight, they came upon Pocoke Island, and anchored under its lee amid thunder and lightning, and rain, and the angry roar of the surf on every side. All night long the flashes lit up the angry scene, while the heavy, tropical thunder shook the bosom of the lake. The haven they had reached was so poor a protection that all hands were kept bailing, to prevent the overstrained boat from foundering at her anchor. We have a very faint idea in our northern latitudes of what a thunderstorm is in the tropics, and the slight affair that Stanley made of it is one of those apparently insignificant, and yet most striking illustrations of his character. Storms on the water--starvation on land--deadly perils of all kinds are spoken of by him as one would speak of the ordinary incidents of travel. He has no time, and apparently no taste, for sensational writing; or perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say--in his cool courage, calm self-reliance and apparent contempt of death he does not see the dramatic side of the scenes in which he performs so important a part. The most tragic events--the most perilous crises are treated by him as ordinary events. An escape so narrow that one's heart stops beating as he contemplates it, he narrates with as much coolness and apparent indifference as he would his deliverance from a disagreeable companion.