Nevertheless, about eight o’clock a light drizzle began. This increased to a steady gentle rain; but the air was warmer than before. The light wind had backed sharply, and was now from the southwest. The smoke rose almost vertically. After a few minutes the rain ceased, but the ship still moved beneath the low cloud-deck. The air was again warm and oppressive as it had been on preceding days.

A quarter of an hour later, the weather changed again. A gust of wind, not enough to be called a squall, raised a few white-caps. Along with it but scarcely of ten seconds’ duration, a sudden shower spattered the deck with large raindrops. The temperature seemed to drop immediately at least ten degrees.

“Queer weather!” remarked the radio-operator to the second officer, at the same time noticing the smoke. It was trailing off to port, again indicating a northerly wind; moreover, instead of rising, the smoke lay close to the surface of the ocean.

“Something getting ready to begin,” said the second officer. “Hope it’s not for us.”

There was, however, no further marked change. At nine o’clock—noon by Greenwich time—the radio-operator began to make his observations, preparatory to reporting to the nearest shore station. He recorded the barometer at 1011, slightly higher than at the time of the shower. He noted the Fahrenheit temperature at 55, fourteen degrees cooler than on the preceding evening. The wind was a steady breeze from the northwest. The cloud-deck was breaking, and a new moon, low in the west, shone over the ocean-surface.

West toward the Chinese coast the ship plowed on steadily. “Whatever we ran through back there,” said the radio-operator, “we’re done with it.” Then he sniffed curiously. “Funny thing—hundreds of miles at sea, and I’d swear I smell dust!”

6

The new Junior Meteorologist ($2,000 a year) was working at his table. The telephone rang and he answered it mechanically. “Weather Bureau. . . . Fair tonight and Wednesday; no change in temperature; moderate northwest winds. . . . You’re welcome.” He clicked down the receiver with unnecessary vigor, showing his irritation. In the five weeks since he had come to work in the Bureau, the weather had been inane. Sometimes he wanted to take up the telephone and shout into it: “Blizzards, lightning, and hurricanes!” But as he bent over his table again, irritation oozed away. Instead, there swelled up within him the joy of the workman, of the scientist, even of the artist. For, as he often told himself, his present task was the only one of his daily assignments over which he could work with some degree of calm and detachment. It was not like the hurried preparation of the early morning map upon which the forecasts were based. His present work had its uses, but they were a little removed from the immediate present.