“Vulcan must be concoctin’ a new brew,” he muttered, as he gazed inquiringly over the bow, “or he’s stirring up an old one.”

“What d’ you mean, father?”

“I mean that there’s somethin’ goin’ on there-away—­in the neighbourhood o’ Sunda Straits,” answered the Captain, directing attention to that point of the compass towards which the ship’s head was turned.  “Darkness like this don’t happen without a cause.  I’ve had some experience o’ them seas before now, an’ depend upon it that Vulcan is stirring up some o’ the fires that are always blazin’ away, more or less, around the Straits Settlements.”

“By which you mean, I suppose, that one of the numerous volcanoes in the Malay Archipelago has become active,” said Nigel; “but are we not some five or six hundred miles to the sou’-west of Sunda?  Surely the influence of volcanic action could scarcely reach so far.”

“So far!” repeated the captain, with a sort of humph which was meant to indicate mild contempt; “that shows how little you know, with all your book-learnin’, about volcanoes.”

“I don’t profess to know much, father,” retorted Nigel in a tone of cheery defiance.

“Why, boy,” continued the other, resuming his perambulation of the deck, “explosions have sometimes been heard for hundreds, ay hundreds, of miles.  I thought I heard one just now, but no doubt the unusual darkness works up my imagination and makes me suspicious, for it’s wonderful what fools the imag—.  Hallo!  D’ee feel that?”

He went smartly towards the binnacle-light, as he spoke, and, holding an arm close to it, found that his sleeve was sprinkled with a thin coating of fine dust.

“Didn’t I say so?” he exclaimed in some excitement, as he ran to the cabin skylight and glanced earnestly at the barometer.  That glance caused him to shout a sudden order to take in all sail.  At the same moment a sigh of wind swept over the sleeping sea as if the storm-fiend were expressing regret at having been so promptly discovered and met.

Seamen are well used to sudden danger—­especially in equatorial seas—­and to prompt, unquestioning action.  Not many minutes elapsed before the Sunshine was under the smallest amount of sail she could carry.  Even before this had been well accomplished a stiff breeze was tearing up the surface of the sea into wild foam, which a furious gale soon raised into raging billows.

The storm came from the Sunda Straits about which the captain and his son had just been talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing but scud before it under almost bare poles.  All that night it raged.  Towards morning it increased to such a pitch that one of the back-stays of the foremast gave way.  The result was that the additional strain thus thrown on the other stays was too much for them.  They also parted, and the fore-top-mast, snapping short off with a report like a cannon-shot, went over the side, carrying the main-topgallant-mast and all its gear along with it.