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After pulling some way, they caught sight of the Tornado's light, when the commander and his party were welcomed with a hearty cheer on board, the crew having felt very anxious when they heard of the dangerous character of the expedition on which he had gone.
Bryant and his wife were dropped to the basement from the ground floor. They, too, miraculously escaped injury. Perhaps the most vivid single description of the tornado's havoc was given by John Porter: "I stood on the rear porch of my home when the great cloud of the storm began its race across the city," he said.
If the Benigner Power can yield A fountain in the desert field, Where weary pilgrims drink; Thine are the waves that lash the rock, Thine the tornado's deadly shock, Where countless navies sink! Or if he bid the soil dispense Balsams to cheer the sinking sense, How few can they deliver From lingering pains, or pang intense, Red Fever, spotted Pestilence, The arrows of thy quiver!
Most of them were eagerly seized by the almost despairing crew; some fastened them round their waists, others, grasping them tightly, attempted to leap on the Tornado's bulwarks. Some succeeded, and were seized by the hands of those on board; others missed their footing, and, with shrieks of despair, letting go their hold, dropped into the intervening space.
The French ship immediately fired her guns in rapid succession, and then both vessels steamed round away from the spot they had previously occupied, towards which numberless Russian guns immediately directed their fire, though not a shot touched either of them. The Tornado's guns were reloaded, and, standing back, she rapidly discharged them, the French ship following her example.
Certainly not where the professor was looking, and even as he roared forth that query, his heart told him the sad truth; past doubting, the instrument upon whose aid he relied to place upon record these marvellous facts, so that all mankind might see and have full faith, was lost, thrown from the aerostat, to meet with certain destruction, when the vessel first came within the tornado's terrible clutch.
On the other hand, when once she got alongside, more time would be allowed to the crew to leap on board. At length the Tornado's bows were up to the transport's quarter, but not till she was completely alongside, and both vessels should rise and fall on the same seas, could any attempt be made to rescue the crew.
The force with which these objects strike is best seen when they fall outside of the tornado's path, since the work done by the missile is not then disturbed by the general destructive force of the storm. Thus, near Racine, Wis., I have known an ordinary fence rail, slightly sharpened on one end, to be driven against a young tree like a spear and pierce it several feet.
In the ruined houses all the iron work was found to have been strongly magnetized, so that pokers, flatirons and other metal objects were found adhering to each other. Just off the tornado's track the same effects were noticed, and several persons experienced sharp electric shocks during the passage of the storm.
Some of the western tornadoes are accompanied by electrical manifestations to an extent that has originated a belief in electricity as their cause. These disturbances are very marked in some cases, while in others they have not been noticed. In one tornado in Central Illinois electricity played very peculiar antics not only in the tornado's track, but also at some distance from it.
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