Lower and lower it reached, as if
feeling for a soil in which to grow, until the sea beneath was
agitated sympathetically, rising at last in a sort of pointed
mound to meet the descending column. Our nearness enabled us to
see that both descending and rising parts were whirling violently
in obedience to some invisible force, and when they had joined
each other, although the spiral motion did not appear to
continue, the upward rush of the water through what was now a
long elastic tube was very plainly to be seen. The cloud
overhead grew blacker and bigger, until its gloom was terrible.
The pipe, or stem, got thinner gradually, until it became a mere
thread; nor, although watching closely, could we determine when
the connection between sea and sky ceased--one could not call it
severed. The point rising from the sea settled almost
immediately amidst a small commotion, as of a whirlpool. The
tail depending from the cloud slowly shortened, and the mighty
reservoir lost the vast bulge which had hung so threateningly
above. Just before the final disappearance of the last portion of
the tube, a fragment of cloud appeared to break off. It fell
near enough to show by its thundering roar what a body of water
it must have been, although it looked like a saturated piece of
dirty rag in its descent.
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