The intense darkness of the night was lighted up for them every minute by an almost incessant blaze of sheet and forked lightning.

The roar of the thunder mingled with the roar of the tempest, each in turn overtopping and drowning the other.

The hut where Felix and Muriel sheltered themselves shook before the storm; the very ground of the island trembled and quivered--like the timbers of a great ship before a mighty sea--at each onset of the breakers upon the surrounding fringe-reef.

And side by side with it all, to crown their misery, wild torrents of rain, descending in waterspouts, as it seemed, or dashed in great sheets against the roof of their frail tenement, poured fitfully on with fierce tropical energy.
In the midst of the hut Muriel crouched and prayed with bloodless lips to Heaven.

This was too, too terrible.