"Twenty-nine-ten," said Raoul. "I have never seen it so low before."

"I should say not!" snorted the captain. "Fifty years boy and man on
all the seas, and I've never seen it go down to that. Listen!"

They stood for a moment, while the surf rumbled and shook the house.
Then they went outside. The squall had passed. They could see the
Aorai lying becalmed a mile away and pitching and tossing madly in the
tremendous seas that rolled in stately procession down out of the
northeast and flung themselves furiously upon the coral shore. One of
the sailors from the boat pointed at the mouth of the passage and
shook his head. Raoul looked and saw a white anarchy of foam and
surge.

"I guess I'll stay with you tonight, Captain," he said; then turned to
the sailor and told him to haul the boat out and to find shelter for
himself and fellows.

"Twenty-nine flat," Captain Lynch reported, coming out from another
look at the barometer, a chair in his hand.

He sat down and stared at the spectacle of the sea. The sun came out,
increasing the sultriness of the day, while the dead calm still held.
The seas continued to increase in magnitude.

"What makes that sea is what gets me," Raoul muttered petulantly.

"There is no wind, yet look at it, look at that fellow there!"