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They were quietly engaged in their various industrial pursuits, dreaming probably of no danger, until the advance of this army, coming upon them mysteriously, no one knew whither, like a plague, or a tornado, or a great conflagration, drove them from their homes, and sent them flying about the country in all directions in terror and despair.
Everybody looked about with mild ejaculations of surprise, and then forgot about the matter. Whistling a Scotch tune, Dugald Shaw set to work again on the boat. In the face of difficulty or opposition he always grew more brisk and cheerful. I used to wonder whether in the event of a tornado he would not warm into positive geniality.
"I hardly think there is one, and it seems strange that we should have caught that cyclone at this time of the year. Isn't it unusual?" "You can't call anything unusual in the tropics," laughed Jack. "I believe you are liable to catch anything at any time here from yellow fever to a tornado. They seem to have them always on hand." "Well, we are safe now, at any rate, and I am glad for that much.
They all promised gladly to avail themselves of the invitation, should circumstances allow them to do so. At early dawn the two boats, as had previously been arranged, shoved off from the side of the Tornado, on the proposed expedition up the river, for the purpose of destroying any Government stores or munitions of war which could be discovered.
Good steering and careful seamanship are immensely important; but of what use are they if one is caught in a tornado or maelstrom, or wedged in among rocks, so that going to pieces is only a question of time? Good seamanship ought to keep one from such a fate, it may be said. So it does in the majority of instances; but often the wisest are caught.
Some expected a great tornado; others said a comet was due and feared it portended some great calamity, perhaps a disaster to the armies in the field who were fighting England in the war of the Revolution. Still others, more ignorant and superstitious, were sure that the end of the world had come, that the last trumpet would soon sound and the dead be raised.
"She came rushing into my room like a young tornado with the plea that Miss Harlowe would blame her for my misdeeds." Jean was tempted to add that which Evelyn had told her in confidence. Then her better nature stirred, and she was silent. "Evelyn isn't nearly as good company this year as she was last," complained Althea. "Ever since the latter part of her freshman year, she's been so different.
But, though ye are at times, and I may say almost always, as mild and even as the smoothest sea over which ye have ever sailed, yet God has mingled in your nature a fearful mixture of fierce passions, which, roused, are more like the southern waters when troubled with the tornado.
My path through the forest was marked, like that of a tornado, by snapped and prostrate stems and withering branches. Had I been a few degrees more human, I might have expected a retribution for my sin. I had fractured my own skull three or four times already.
"Stand by, to clear away a boat!" shouted Wilder, without pausing to think of the impossibility of one's swimming, or of effecting the least good, in so violent a tornado. But the amazed and confounded seamen who remained needed no instruction in this matter. Not a man moved, nor was the smallest symptom of obedience given.
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