eared
for a moment in the distance, perhaps from Hastings; and at one time the
moon came out red and full, and exactly at the top of a vessel's lofty
sails. One steamer had puzzled me much by its keeping nearly still.
This drifted close up at last, and they called out, "Ahoy, there!--are
you a fishing boat?" They wanted to know their bearings, as the current
and shifting wind made the position of Beachy Head quite uncertain in the
dark. {261} I replied to their hail--"No, I'm the yacht Rob Roy, crew of
one man; don't you see my white sails?" and they answered--"See? why, who
can see to-night?"

Sometimes a sudden and dead lull came with an ominous meaning, and then
the loud hissing of rain could be heard advancing to us in the dark till
it poured on the yawl in sheets of water, and the mere dripping from the
peak of my sou'wester was enough to obscure vision.

And yet, after a few hours of the turmoil and excitement, this state of
things became quite as it were _natural_, so soon does one get accustomed
to any circumstances, however strange at first. I even cooked hot tea;
it was something to do, as well as to drink, and singing and whistling
also beguiled the dark hours of eager, strained matching. In a lighter
moment, once a great lumbering sloop sailed near, and we hailed her
loudly, "How's the wind going to be?"--for the wind kept ever changing
(but the thunder and lightning were going on still). A gruff voice
answered, "Can't say; who _can_ say--night--this sort--think it'll settle
east." This was bad news for me, but it did not come true. The sloop's
skipper wished for an east wind, and so he expected it.

A stranger sound than any before now forced attention as it rapidly
neared us, and soon the sea was white around with boiling, babbling
little waves--what could it be? Instantly I sounded with the lead, but
there was no bottom--we were not driving on shore--it was one of the
"overfalls" or "ripples" we have mentioned before where a turbid sea is
raised in deep water by some far-down precipice under the waves.

The important question at once arose as to which of the "overfalls" on my
chart this could be--the one marked as only a mile from Beachy Head, or
the other ten miles further on. Have we been turning and wheeling about
all this dreary night in only a few square miles of sea, or have we
attained the eastern tide, and so are now running fast on our course?

The incessant and irksome pitching and