When I had finished this loathsome task it was so late that I concluded to stay all night at the cove instead of trying to go home. If the weather kept clear there would be no great hardship in sleeping on the grass for one night. The sun set, however, with an angry red glow amid a mass of heavy clouds portending foul weather. Moreover, as the night fell there was an oppressive calm, and the heat was intense. So threatening was the aspect of the weather that had I been at all sure of being able to find my way in the darkness, I should have certainly attempted to get home even after the sun had set. There was no shelter if it should rain, and I was at my wits’ end how to contrive a place to pass the night. What a fool I had been not to notice the approaching storm in time to get to my comfortable house. The best provision I was able to make was to gather some grass and willow-boughs and take them under an overhanging rock, where I cut with the axe in the dark some limbs and boughs and made a sort of lean-to. This I supplemented with the tub turned up toward the quarter whence the rain would most probably come, and Duke and I crept into this sorry nest to await events.
One event came without waiting, and that was a powerful stench from the unlucky tub. But as I had endured this already for nearly half a day, I concluded it would, by familiarity, become less and less offensive. I could not go to sleep, but lay there turning and tossing on my uncomfortable couch and watching the weather.
The calm continued until near midnight, when a cool breeze sprang up and swept down the gorge and out to sea. I thought this indicated that the storm was about to pass around and away; but the heavy rumble of thunder out at sea, growing louder and sharper, and becoming almost continuous, and the constant play of lightning, quickly dissipated this notion. I looked out with awe at this tremendous electric display.
The breeze fell presently, and I looked out and saw coming in from the sea a coppery red mass of cloud glowing as though it contained a furnace. Instinctively I crouched down behind the rock beside the dog, who was shivering with fear, and grasped the corners of a huge fallen fragment. With a dreadful, screeching roar, mingled with a din of thunder such as I am utterly unable to describe, and can liken to nothing I ever heard before or since, the hurricane burst upon the island. There was no rain, but at first I thought there was, for the spray from the ocean beat in my face and drenched me to the skin. It was not rain, for it was salt to the taste. My shelter of boughs, and also the high-smelling tub were blown away instantly, and with the dog under me I fairly had all I could do to hold on. Above the roar of the wind, the rattling of stones, and the din of the thunder, I could hear the crash of falling trees and breaking boughs. Nor did the awful wind let up for nearly half an hour, and I was quite worn out with the apprehension and the struggle. If I lifted my face for an instant the spray and sand and pebbles whipped with such violence against it that I was glad to bury it close to the ground. Such awful storms I had heard of, and even been witness to their effects after the event; but never could I have had an adequate idea of the terrible reality without this experience.