About four o'clock in the afternoon Melvyna, happening to look out of the door, saw a cloud no bigger than a man's hand low down on the horizon line of the sea. Something made her stand and watch it for a few moments. Then, "Miss Luke! Miss Luke! Miss Luke! Miss Luke!" she called quickly. Down came the little Sister, startled at the cry, her lace work still in her hand.
The Sister looked, and this is what she saw: a line white as milk coming toward them on the water, and behind it a blackness.
"A tornader," said Melvyna with white lips. "I've only seen one, and then I was over in the town; but it's awful! We must run back to the thicket," Seizing her companion's arm, the strong Northern woman hurried her across the sand, through the belt of sand hills, and into the thicket, where they crouched on its far side close down under the protecting backbone. "The bushes will break the sand, and the ridge will keep us from being buried in it," she said. "I dursn't stay on the shore, for the water'll rise."
The words were hardly spoken before the tornado was upon them, and the air was filled with the flying sand, so that they could hardly breathe. Half choked, they beat with their hands before them to catch a breath. Then came a roar, and for an instant, distant as they were, they caught a glimpse of the crest of the great wave that followed the whirlwind. It seemed to them mountains high, and ready to engulf the entire land. With a rushing sound it plunged over the keeper's house, broke against the lower story of the tower, hissed across the sand, swallowed the sand hills, and swept to their very feet, then sullenly receded with slow, angry muttering. A gale of wind came next, singularly enough from another direction, as if to restore the equipoise of the atmosphere. But the tornado had gone on inland, where there were trees to uproot, and houses to destroy, and much finer entertainment generally.
As soon as they could speak, "Where are the two out in the sail boat?" asked the Sister.
"God knows!" answered Melvyna. "The last time I noticed their sail they were about a mile outside of the reef."
"Go and see! Are you crazy? You can never get through that water."
"The saints would help me, I think," said the little Sister.