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But what still lay ahead of the two justified in de Spain's mind what he was doing. He acted deliberately in risking the exposure of their position to unfriendly eyes far distant. The mutterings above the mountains now grew rapidly louder and while the two hovered over the fire, a thunder-squall, rolling wildly down the eastern slope, burst over the Gap.
The barometer, too, exhibited a tendency to fall; but the decline was so slight that I was of opinion it meant no more than perhaps a sharp thunder-squall, particularly as there was no swell making; moreover there was a close, thundery feeling in the stagnating air, which increased as the day grew older.
When he awoke, it was to see fishing-boats running into harbour under bare poles amid the hubbub of a thunder-squall. In that squall the 'Ariel' disappeared. It is doubtful whether the unseaworthy craft was merely swamped, or whether, as there is some reason to suppose, an Italian felucca ran her down with intent to rob the Englishmen.
There was no barometer aboard the felucca, so I had nothing to guide me to the meaning of the weather portents, but I was convinced that something out of the common something more than a mere thunder-squall was brewing; and, if so, I should probably have my hands full in taking care of the felucca, with nobody to help me.
For this he had Halleck's authority, in view of the danger of cavalry raids into the city. His tents were pitched in a high airy situation looking toward the Potomac on the east; indeed he had found them a little too airy in the thunder-squall of the previous evening which had demolished part of the canvas village. It must have been about noon when I dismounted at his tent.
"You appear to take things coolly, Mister Thorwald," said Montague, half in jest, yet with a touch of asperity in his manner. "Humph!" ejaculated Montague; "but the weather is warm just now; at least it seems so to me, so warm that I should not be surprised if a thunder-squall were to burst upon us ere long."
We were by this time clear of the reef and in open water, so I went down to breakfast, leaving Bob at the tiller. Ella was very penitent for her late "naughtiness," as she termed it, and was so lavish with her endearments, to make up for it, that I would very willingly have experienced such a "thunder-squall" every day of my life to have the air cleared afterwards in so agreeable a manner.
Had it not been for the steady, continuous fall of the mercury I should have expected nothing worse than a fresh breeze from the westward, preceded perhaps by a thunder-squall; but the barometer indicated something more serious than that, yet the sky gave no verifying sign of the approach of anything like a heavy blow.
In a hot spring day a mass of air which has been warmed by the sun, and moistened by evaporation near the surface of the earth, may rise up and cool by expansion to near the freezing-point. The resulting condensation of the moisture may then produce a shower or thunder-squall.
As yet the din and hubbub was that made by men, but their shrill pipings were suddenly silenced by the crashing voice of a thunder-squall that burst right over our heads. For some time no other sounds were to be heard than the thunder, wind, and rain.
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