I went down to the beach to see for myself how things stood, and was forced to admit that the man had not exaggerated. In the midst of the raging surf the launch rocked to and fro, and threatening waves rose on every side and often seemed to cover her. Still she was holding her own, and had evidently not struck a rock as yet; and if her cables held out, hope was not lost. I watched her fight for life for some time, and she defended herself more gallantly than I should ever have expected from so clumsy a craft; but I had little hope. We spent a miserable night in the village, in a heavy atmosphere, amid vermin and filth, on an uneven stone floor. The rain rattled on the roof, the storm roared in the forest like a passing express train, the sea thundered from afar, and a river echoed in a gorge near by; to complete the gloomy scene, a violent earthquake shook the hills. In the morning the launch was still afloat on the same spot; the wind had abated, and the sky no longer looked quite so stormy. During the night things improved still more, and we ventured to camp on the shore. The boys went for the dinghey, and although they had hard work, half dragging, half carrying it along the shore over the cliffs, they succeeded in bringing it to our beach, and then made an attempt to row to the launch, but were almost carried out beyond the reef. Encouraged by a faintly rosy sunset and a few stars, we waited another day; then the current along the coast had nearly ceased, only outside the reef huge mountains of water rolled silently and incessantly past, and broke thundering against the cliffs. The second attempt to reach the launch was successful, and, wonderful to relate, she had suffered no damage, only she had shipped so much water that everything was soaked and rusty. The engineer began to repair her engines, and by evening she steamed back to her anchorage, where we welcomed her as if she had been a human being. The wind had quite fallen when we steamed out next day. It was dull weather, and we were rocked by an enormous swell; yet the water was like a mirror, and the giant waves rose and disappeared without a sound. It all seemed unnatural and uncanny, and this may have produced the frightened feeling that held us all that morning. While we were crossing over to Port Patterson a sharp wind rose from the north, and the barometer fell, so that we feared another edition of the storm. If our engines had broken down, which happened often enough, we should have been lost, for we were in a region where the swell came from two directions, and the waves were even higher than in the morning. Fortunately the wind increased but slowly; presently we were protected by the coast, and at night we arrived at Port Patterson. The men had given us up, and welcomed us with something akin to tenderness. Here, too, the cyclone had been terrible, the worst of the three that had passed in four weeks.