Ernest and Frank were bending their heads to receive the
parting benediction of their parents, when suddenly a fierce torrent
of wind shook the gallery of Rockhouse to its foundation, and uprooted
some of the bamboo columns by which it was supported.
"Only a squall," said Willis quietly.
"A squall!" exclaimed Becker, "what do you call a hurricane then?"
"Oh, a hurricane, I mean a downright reefer, all square and
close-hauled, that is a very different affair; but, after all, this
begins to look very like the real article."
Now came a succession of gusts, each succeeding one more powerful than
its predecessor, till every beam of the gallery bent and quivered;
dense copper-colored clouds appeared in the atmosphere, rolling
against each other, and disengaging by their shock, the thunder and
lightnings. Then fell, not the slender needles of water we call rain,
but veritable floods, that were to our heaviest European showers what
the cataracts of the Rhine, at Staubach, or the falls of Niagara, are
to the gushings of a sylvan rivulet. In a few minutes the Jackal river
had converted the valley into a lake, in which the plantations and
buildings appeared to be afloat, and rendering egress from Rockhouse
nearly impossible.
However much of a colorist Willis might be, he could not have painted
a storm with the eloquence of the elements that had cut short his
observation.
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