They went by the board, as did the wreckage of the
two remaining boats. The other pearl-buyers and myself, between
seas, managed to get about fifteen women and children into the
cabin and battened down. Little good it did the poor creatures in
the end.
Wind? Out of all my experiences I could not have believed it
possible for the wind to blow as it did. There is no describing
it. How can one describe a nightmare? It was the same way with
that wind. It tore the clothes off our bodies. I say TORE THEM
OFF, and I mean it. I am not asking you to believe it. I am
merely telling something that I saw and felt. There are times
when I do not believe it myself. I went through it, and that is
enough. One could not face that wind and live. It was a monstrous
thing, and the most monstrous thing about it was that it
increased and continued to increase. Imagine countless millions
and billions of tons of sand. Imagine this sand tearing along at
ninety, a hundred, a hundred and twenty, or any other number of
miles per hour. Imagine, further, this sand to be invisible,
impalpable, yet to retain all the weight and density of sand. Do
all this, and you may get a vague inkling of what that wind was
like.
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