During the entire passage of the hurricane not a drop of rain fell, so far as I could judge, though, as before stated, I was drenched with spray. Gradually, with an occasional renewal of the blast, the wind went down, and in an hour the stars were shining pure and serene in the dark vault above.
The temperature had now fallen many degrees, and there was a cool, steady wind from the north that chilled me through to the bone. Of course I had no fire, and no means of procuring one, and the only relief obtainable was such exercise as I could get by stamping about and thrashing my arms until the blood was in rapid circulation. Sitting back against the rock I dozed a little now and then, and waited impatiently for the break of day, which seemed as though it never would come.
As soon as it was fairly light we started for home. The effects of the hurricane were visible on every hand. Trees broken off, blown over, and uprooted, green branches scattered here and there, the silvery under sides of the leaves showing, and giving an air of disorder and destruction by their unaccustomed appearance and tint, all marked the hand of the destroyer. The central plateau seemed to have suffered most. Here several great trees had been twisted until the trunks were a mass of splinters, indicating that they had successively occupied the very eye and centre of the rotary wind. Hurrying along rapidly we came down to the lower land, and I was glad to observe much fewer signs of destruction here. We came upon a dead pig, killed by a huge fallen limb, and I pulled him out, as we were now nearly home, and dragged him along with me for food.
When we reached the open beach I found plenty of evidence of the mighty wind in the scattered palm leaves, boughs, and branches strewn along the strand. In the distance I could see the ruins of my work-shed. The roof was off, and lying down the beach a hundred yards or more in a heap at the water’s edge. The boat, for which I felt specially anxious, was hidden from view by a clump of water bushes that grew on the hither bank of the creek. The mast I could see, and noted that an unnatural tilt had been given to it. Dragging the dead pig I slowly made my way along the sand. The house stood intact, my hammock still swung to the frame-work of the shed. The top of a cocoanut palm, twisted off by the wind and carried through the air, had brought up against the frame of the shed and lodged there, while the nuts growing on it were scattered about the ground, some of them as far as the water’s edge.