A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming. Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed.

The waves rose in growing fury, each overtopping its fellow, till in a very few minutes the recently glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. White-crested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the cliff sides. Others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the lanterns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbour.

The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, or clung with grim clasp to the iron stanchions. It was found necessary to clear the entire pier from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities of the night would have increased many-fold.