XVI

THE FRUIT OF THE TEMPEST


Neither O'Neil nor his host was in sight when the girls came to
breakfast. The men had risen early, it seemed, and were somewhere
out in the storm. A wilder day would be hard to imagine; a
hurricane was raging, the rain was whirled ahead of it like
charges of shot. The mountains behind Kyak were invisible, and to
seaward was nothing but a dimly discernible smother of foam and
spray, for the crests of the breakers were snatched up and
carried by the wind. The town was sodden; the streets were
running mud. Stove-pipes were down, tents lay flattened in the
mire, and the board houses were shaking as if they might fly to
pieces at any moment. The darkness was uncanny, and the tempest
seemed to be steadily growing in violence.

When an hour or two had passed with no word from the men Eliza
announced her intention of looking them up. She had spent the
time at a window, straining her eyes through the welter, while
Natalie had curled up cozily with a book in one of Trevor's arm-
chairs.

"But, dearie, you'll be drenched." Natalie looked up in surprise.
"Mr. O'Neil is all right."

"Of course he is. I'm not going out to spank him and bring him