“That is so,” said the officer. “The higher the water is, the more the air in the caves becomes pressed, and so the louder is the explosion. But this day the water has filled the caves to the roof, leaving no air in their depths to bellow. One of my men, on his patrol an hour ago, was overtaken by the tide at the foot of the cliffs at a place high above spring tide mark. He had to climb to safety. He did so only with difficulty. Had he been at Nitlisaye, nothing would have saved him.” “What, are Nithsaye sands flooded? Impossible,” cried Hartwell. “Flooded up to Tor, sir. I tell you the thing is a marvel!” “All the more so, since there is no wind to add to the force of the tide,” said Wesley. “True, sir; there was a strong breeze in the early morning that swept the sea-mist over the shore; but there has not been a capful since,” said the officer. “But see the waves! Are they the effects of the early wind, think you, sir?” asked Wesley. “Maybe; but if so, this also is past my experience of this coast, sir,” replied the man. “But I allow that when I was sailing with Captain Hawke in the West Indies I knew of the waters of the Caribbean Sea being stirred up like this in the dead calm before a hurricane that sent us on our beam ends, and one of our squadron on to the Palisades Reef at Port Royal.” “Do you fear for a hurricane at this time?” asked Wesley. “A gale, maybe; but no such hurricane as wrecks the island it swoops down on in the Leewards, sir. Oh, a hurricane in very deed! Our ship's cutter--a thirty-foot boat swung in on the iron davits--and lashed down to iron stanchions on the deck--was whisked adrift as if it had been an autumn leaf. I say it went five hundred fathom through the air and no man saw it fall. I saw a road twenty foot wide shorn through the dense forest for five miles as clean as with a scythe, as you go to Spanish Town--a round dozen of planters' houses and a stone church had once stood on that cutting. They were swept off, and not a stone of any one of them was ever found by mortal after. Oh, a hurricane, indeed! We need expect naught like that, by the mercy of Heaven, gentlemen; though I care not for the look of yon sun.” They glanced upwards. The sun had the aspect of being seen through a slight haze, which made it seem of a brazen red, large and with its orb all undefined. It looked more like the red fire of a huge lighted brazier than the round sun, and all around it there was the gleam as of moving flames. “Looks unhealthy--is't not so?” said the officer. “There is a haze in the air; but the heat is none the less,” said Hartwell. “I like it not, sirs. This aspect of the sun is part and parcel of some disturbance of nature that we would do well to be prepared for,” said the officer, shaking his head ominously.