The White Squall. John C. Hutcheson

I was so overjoyed at hearing Jake’s announcement that the long-expected mail steamer had at last arrived that I was utterly oblivious of my soaking condition, although I had been so completely drenched in the brief space of time that had elapsed before I could get under shelter from the shower, that the water was now trickling down my dripping garments and running out of my boots. “Look alive, old fellow,” I added to the willing darkey, who was in an equally moist state, his black skin glistening as if it had received a fresh coating of Japan varnish. “Saddle my pony at once, for I must go into town, as I told you!”

“But, Tom,” interposed my mother at this juncture, “you cannot start in all this rain. See how wet you are already, dear, and it is still pouring down, worse than ever!”

“Oh, never mind that, mother, it will stop soon,” I rejoined hastily, mortally afraid of her putting an embargo on my contemplated expedition to Saint George’s. “I will go in and change my things, and long before I’m ready it’ll be fine again, you’ll see! Besides, you know, dad may have come by the steamer, and he’ll be expecting me to meet him and want Dandy to ride home on. Jake can take him down along with me, so as to be on the safe side, eh?”

“Well, well, my dear, I suppose you must have your way,” said my mother, whom this last argument of mine, in respect of my father’s possible arrival, seemed to convince against her will, for she made no further demur to my setting out, in spite of the weather.

This very material point being satisfactorily arranged in my favour, as Jake could see with half an eye, he having waited to learn whether my orders were to be carried out or not, the darkey now hurried off to the stables to execute them with a cheerful grin on his ebony face, fearing the rain as little as he did the burning rays of the mid-day sun; while I scurried off to my room upstairs to shift my wringing clothes and put on another suit of white flannel, which is the ordinary wear of all sensible people in tropical countries—just as it is becoming the fashion over here in summer, especially for fellows who go in for cricket and other athletic games provocative of perspiration.

I had judged well of the climate and been a true weather prophet; for, albeit I was pretty sharp in dressing, long ere I could get below again the rain suddenly ceased falling, and, in another moment or so, the sun was shining down as potently as it had done before the thunder-storm, from an absolutely cloudless sky, whose burnished blue arc was only suggestive of heat and glare as usual.

When I stood under the verandah once more, awaiting Jake with the horses, I noticed that the marble pavement of the terrace in front had dried up already, while the earth of the flower-beds scarcely looked damp. As previously, lots of humming-birds, displaying their rainbow plumage to the best advantage, were flitting here and there between the shrubs, in pursuit of the myriads of flies and other insects that had come out for an airing after the shower, some of the tiny feathered mites poising themselves before some opening bud or blossom, or else peering into its interior, with their little wings moving at the rate of ten thousand bird-power per minute and creating a little halo of variegated light around them.

The industrious ants, too, had reformed their parasol procession, which the temporary deluge had seriously disorganised; and, but that several solemn-looking blackbirds, of a larger species than the yellow-billed variety familiar to us in England, were now hopping about on the lawn under the orange-trees, digging up worms, and that a stray drop or two of crystal glittered on the petals of the roses like diamonds, or reflected the sunshine from the trumpet bells of the lilies, while there was a greener tint on the vegetation around, one could hardly have imagined that it had rained at all!

Still, there was a perceptible coolness in the air now noticeable that was most refreshing after the suffocating heat, which I had found so oppressive an hour agone; and, this tempered tone of the atmosphere brought out more vividly the fragrant scent of the frangipanni and languid perfume of the jessamine, the whole atmosphere without being redolent of their mingled odours, harmoniously blended together in sweet unison, like a regular pot-pourri!

The showery avalanche, besides cooling and sweetening the air with the balmy breath of the flowers which its influence extracted, left also other evidence of its effect behind. This was especially apparent in the swelling torrent of muddy water, drained from the slopes of the mountain-side above the house and now impetuously rushing down an impromptu gully which the flood had scooped out for itself across the grounds, following the course of the carriage drive almost up to the entrance-gate, where the suddenly-created cataract, diverging into a hollow to the left, made another exit for itself through the cactus hedge into the cocoa plantation beyond.

Jake was much longer in getting the horses

Скачать книгу