The sun sank, broadened out and banded with mist beyond the Lizard Point, and before his upper limb had been swallowed by the rocks the business began with a blow from the hills.

Most winds come in gusts and pauses, this wind from the Infernal Regions came at first steady and warm, never ceasing, steadily growing like the thrust of an infinite sword driven with a rapidly increasing momentum and a murmur like the voice of Speed herself.

Raft and the girl saw that the sea elephants were herding up into the shelter of the cliffs and that the gulls had vanished as though they had never been.

And still the wind increased, its voice now a long monotonous cry, steadily sharpening, yet deepening, stern as the Voice of Wrath.

“It’s blowing up,” said Raft, “and there’s more coming.”

Then over the cliff and undershot by the last rays of sunset came the clouds chased and harried by the wind, tearing before and torn by the teeth of the gale.

Raft and the girl stood watching till pebbles and rocks the size of coconuts began to fall on the beach blown over the cliff edge, till the sea, flat and milk-white, seemed to bend under the stress, till it would seem that the very islands would be blown away.

The girl felt light-headed and giddy as though the rush above had rarefied the air under the cliffs. Not a drop of rain fell, the wind held the sky and the whole world. It seemed loosed from some mysterious keeping never to be recaptured until it had blown the sea away and flattened the earth.

And still it increased.

Raft, taking the girl by the arm, drew her back into the cave; she was trembling. It seemed to her that this was no storm, that something had gone wrong with the scheme of things, that this Voice steadily being keyed up was the voice of some string keeping everything together, stretched to its utmost and sure to snap.

Then it snapped.

The whole of Kerguelen seemed to burst like a bomb-shell with a blaze of light shewing islands and sea.

Then again it seemed to burst with a light struggling through a deluge.

The boom of the rain on the sea came between the thunder crashes whilst a giant on the hills seemed to stand steadily working a flashlight, a light so intense that now and again through broken walls of rain the islands could be seen like far white ghosts wreathed in mist.

They sat down on the floor of the cave and the man put his arm about the girl as if to protect her; then something came sniffing at them, it was a little sea elephant that had got astray and scared by the work outside had crept in for shelter and company. The girl rested her hand on it and it lay still.

It seemed to her now that she could hear the gods of the storm as they battled, hear their cries and breathing and trampling, whilst every moment a thousand foot giant in full armour would come crashing to earth, knee, shoulder and helmet hitting the rocks in succession.

“It’s a big blow,” came Raft’s voice, “no call to be scared.”

He was holding her to him like a child whilst she held to her the little sea elephant, and so they remained, the three of them until the big blow, failing to tear Kerguelen from its foundations, began to pause like a spent madman.

The flashlight man on the hills began to work his apparatus more slowly and now the thunder seemed doing its vast work away out at sea and all sounds became gradually merged in the enormous, continuous sound of the rain.

The little sea elephant seemed suddenly to take fright at the strange company it found itself in and went tumbling and sniffing out to find its mates, whilst through the night came the occasional “woof” of a bull as if giving praise that the worst was over.

“The old sea cows know it’s done,” said Raft, “now you’d better get under your blankets,—you aren’t afraid to be alone?”

“I’m not afraid a bit now,” said she. She patted his hand as a child might and he crawled out and she heard him swearing at the rain as he made for his hole in the cliff.

She remembered the porpoises and fell to thinking of what would have happened had she and Raft started on their expedition yesterday or the day before. That wind, which sent rocks flying on to the beach, would have blown them away.

She said this next morning as they stood watching the sea. The sea was worth watching. The due-south wind had stirred the heart of the ocean from west of Enderby land, and, like a trumpeter, was leading a vast flood that split on Heard Island only to re-form and burst on the southern shores of Kerguelen.

They could hear the vague far-off roar of it all those leagues away beyond the mountains, mixed with the cry of the wind still blowing a full gale, and beyond the shelter of the land they could see the islands getting it, bombarded by the waves and up to their shoulders in sea-smoke and foam.

Then as they stood, suddenly and like a thing shot dead, the wind ceased, and in the silence the roar of the beaches far and near arose like a fume of sound. Then, as suddenly, the wind came shouting out of the west, piling up a cross sea that leapt like the water in a boiling pot.

“I’m thinking when this blow is over we may have a spell of fine weather,” said Raft, “and it will be just as well for us to be making our plans and getting things ready so’s we won’t be behind hand when the fine spell comes.”

“I think so too,” said she, “we will have to take food with us—how much?”

“Enough for a month,” said he, “who knows, we may have to come back, and there’s not much to be had elsewhere.” Then he fell into thought for a moment, “maybe stuff for a fortnight will be enough for there’s birds and rabbits to be got, and gulls’ eggs. Them old penguins let you screw their necks as if it come natural to them, we don’t want to take too big a load.”

Then they found themselves at a loss, it was quite easy to arrange to take a fortnight’s food, but how much did that mean?

They determined to use two blankets for sacks and then made a rough calculation, based on imagination, and collected together tins of meat and vegetables and the remaining biscuits, the result was a burden that two people might have carried but not very far.

“We’ve overshot it,” said Raft.

“We’ll never be able to carry all that,” said the girl, “or if we did we would have to go so slowly that the journey would be much longer—it cuts both ways.”

They reduced the load by nearly a half.

“There’s one thing,” said he, “there’s no call to take water with us, there’s holes full of water everywhere, seems to me in this place.”

Then he turned to look at the weather.

The wind was less and the clouds were thinning and the air had the feel of a break coming. Then, just before sunset the clouds parted in the west and the sun went down in a sky red as blood.

“We’ll start tomorrow,” said Raft.