“No sir, and I do not want to be in a storm,” answered the boy. “Do you think that we shall have a storm?”
“Think?” shouted the man in great astonishment, “why, Lord bless me, I know we’ll have one—we’re heading right for one. You see that dark spot over yonder? Well, that’s the Azores. You’ll see that spot will turn into land tomorrow and the next day we’ll pass it and then it will blow like His Royal Highness the devil was holding court—for there’s always a storm about those islands—and has been ever since 1564.”
“What makes it?” asked the boy.
“Well, some thinks as the devil uses the place to hold his parliaments, and that the noise is made by the angry members when his infernal majesty vetoes bills. But there’s not much truth in that opinion. All I know is as it’s always storming there.”
The prospect of passing through the region
