Suddenly, as they do in the tropics, an extraordinary thing happened. A simoon, a monsoon and a typhoon met, head on, at the exact corner of the equator and the 180th meridian. We hadn't noticed one of them,--they had given us no warning or signal of any kind. Before we knew it they were upon us! I have been in any one of the three separately many a time. In '95 off the Blue Canary Islands I was caught in an octoroon, one of those eight-sided storms, that spun our ship around like a top, and killed all the canaries for miles about--the sea was strewn with their bodies. But this! "Below," bellowed Captain Triplett, and we made a dive for the hatch. William Henry Thomas was the last in, having been in the bow setting off a pinwheel, when the blow hit us. We dragged him in. My last memory is of Triplett driving a nail back of the hatch-cover to keep it from sliding. How long we were whirled in that devil's grip of the elements I cannot say. It may have been a day--it may have been a week. We were all below, battened down ... tight. At times we lost consciousness--at times we were sick--at times, both. I remember standing on Triplett's face and peering out through a salt-glazed port-hole at a world of waterspouts, as thick as forest trees, dancing, melting, crashing upon us. I sank back. _This was the end_ ... [Illustration: A Bewildered Botanist] [Illustration Note: A BEWILDERED BOTANIST Here, against the background of a closely woven hedge of southern hornbeam (_Carpinus Tropicalis_), we see that eminent scientist, Reginald Whinney, in the act of discovering, for the first time in any country, a magnificent specimen of wild modesty (_Tiarella nuda_), which grows in great profusion throughout the Filbert Islands. This tiny floweret is distantly related, by marriage, to the European sensitive plant (_Plantus pudica_) but is infinitely more sensitive and reticent. An illustration of this amazing quality is found in the fact that its snowy blossoms blush a deep crimson under the gaze of the human eye. At the touch of the human hand the flowers turn inside-out and shrink to minute proportions. Dr. Whinney attempted in vain to transplant specimens of this fragile creation to our old-world botanical gardens but found the conditions of modern plant life an insuperable barrier. The seeds of wild modesty absolutely refuse to germinate in either Europe or America.] * * * * * Calm. Peace and sun! The beneficence of a warm, golden finger that reached gently through the port-hole and rested on my eye. What had happened? Oh--yes. "Like a blackbird in the spring." Slowly I fought my way back to consciousness. Triplett was sitting in a corner still clutching the hammer. On the floor lay Whinney and William Henry Thomas, their twisted legs horribly suggestive of death. "Air," I gasped.