Page:South Sea tales (IA southseajack00londrich).djvu/45

 no longer thought, and was but semiconscious. One idea constituted his consciousness: So this was a hurricane. That one idea persisted irregularly. It was like a feeble flame that flickered occasionally. From a state of stupor he would return to it—So this was a hurricane. Then he would go off into another stupor.

The height of the hurricane endured from eleven at night till three in the morning, and it was at eleven that the tree in which clung Mapuhi and his women snapped off. Mapuhi rose to the surface of the lagoon, still clutching his daughter Ngakura. Only a South Sea islander could have lived in such a driving smother. The pandanus-tree, to which he attached himself, turned over and over in the froth and churn; and it was only by holding on at times and waiting, and at other times shifting his grips rapidly, that he was able to get his head and Ngakura's to the surface at intervals sufficiently near together to keep the breath in them. But the air was mostly water,