Out of doors, meanwhile, the shower went on without ceasing.  It had begun shortly after midnight; the ground was covered to the depth of two inches.  Nepenthe lay veiled in Cimmerian gloom, darker than starless midnight—­a darkness that could be felt; a blanket, as it were, hot and breathless, weighing upon the landscape.  All was silent.  No footfall could be heard in the streets; the powdery ashes, softer than snow, absorbed every sound.  And still they fell.  Those few scared natives whom necessity forced to go abroad crept about in fear of their lives.  They thought the end of the world had come.  Terror-stricken, they carried knives and revolvers in their pockets; they passed each other distrustfully in the streets holding, in one hand, a lighted torch or lantern, and in the other a handkerchief pressed to the face for fear of suffocation.  In one or two of the shop windows could be discerned a light glimmering feebly as through the thickest fog.  All the ordinary sights and sounds of morning—­the vehicles plying for hire, the cracking of whips, the cries of the fish and fruit vendors—­all were gone.  The deathly stillness was broken only by a clangour of the town clock, tolling the hours into a darkened world.

Half a dozen adventurous spirits had gathered together at the Club.  They called themselves adventurous.  As a matter of fact they were scared out of their wits and had gone there merely with a view to leaning on each other for mutual support and courage.  There was no whisky drinking that morning, no cards, no scandal-mongering.  They sat round a table under an acetylene lamp, anxiously listening to a young professor from Christiania who claimed to be versed in the higher mathematics and was then occupied in calculating, by means of the binomial theorem, how long it would take for the whole town of Nepenthe to be submerged under ashes up to the roofs—­presuming all the buildings to be of equal height.  He was a new-comer to the place and, for that reason, rather a cheerful pessimist.  He thought it quite possible that before the second floors of the houses had been reached—­granted, of course, that none was higher or lower than the other—­the wind might change and carry the ashes elsewhere.  His demonstration had a depressing effect on the hearts of those who had lived longer on the island.  They rose from the table and sadly shook their heads, prepared for the worst.  They knew their sirocco.

As morning wore on other stragglers entered the premises, muffled up to the ears; they scattered ashes from their cloaks and hastily closed the door behind them.  More lamps were lighted.  The news was not inspiring.  It was dark as ever outside; you could not see your hand before your face; the shower had accumulated to an alarming extent.  Some roofs had fallen in under the weight of ashes; telegraphic communication with the mainland was interrupted owing, it was supposed, to the snapping of the cable in some submarine convulsion;