"He will come once more. Sure thing. Damned sure."
The strain on the nerves of the party in the palace became more and more severe. During the second week in October it almost reached the breaking point. For four days the sirocco blew across the island. The sky was grey and seemed to press down on sea and land, heavy, unbroken, intolerably near. The wind blew strongly, but with none of the fresh boisterous fierceness of a northern gale. There was a sullen malignity about its force. Out at sea grey-topped waves wrangled and strove together confusedly. They broke in a welter of soiled foam across the reef which lay opposite the mouth of the bay. Within the harbour little waves, like jagged steel blades, rose, hissed at each other spitefully, and perpetually stabbed at the rocky shore.
The close, suffocating heat oppressed men and beasts. The islanders retreated into their cottages and lay, patiently enduring, till the vile wind should pass away. Cattle cowered for shelter under the lee of walls or among the bent, swaying trees. Donovan sat alone in his room in the palace. He sweated continuously though he wore little clothing. He was the victim of many kinds of physical uneasiness, pains which would not quite declare themselves, restless fidgetings of his limbs, vague depression of spirit. Konrad Karl and Madame quarrelled openly and bitterly. His revilings stung her. Her own ill-temper left her raw. She fled to her room and locked herself into it. The King, perversely persistent, went after her. He could be heard scolding her through the closed door at one moment, begging pathetically for admittance at another. Gorman wandered restlessly from room to room. He opened windows, panting for air, and closed them with a curse when the hot blast of the sirocco smote him in the face. Smith, alone of all the party, preserved his self-control. The sweat trickled down his face; but he was alert, attentive, busy, as if the sun shone and the breeze blew fresh across sparkling water.
The Queen found the palace intolerable, worse than the wind outside. Very soon after breakfast she went out. Kalliope, faithful even amid the torment of the sirocco, followed her. They struggled together towards their watch place on the cliff. The wind buffeted them, set their hair floating wildly, struck their eyelids painfully. Their legs were caught and held by tangling petticoats. Sometimes as the path twisted they headed right against the storm. Then bent almost double, they bored their way through dense resisting air. Sometimes, moving slantwise, they were caught by a side blast, and then they walked leaning at a sharp angle against the wind. Or, for a little while, they scudded before it, driven against their wills to swift motion which was unbearably exhausting. More than once Kalliope flung herself down and lay flat, panting on the shelterless grass. If she had taken her own way she would have given the struggle up. But the Queen, though she too gasped for breath, would not turn back or rest for more than a few minutes. She was determined to reach the look-out post on the cliff. In the end she got there.