hand to show that he has heard; and
just at that moment the port-fire burns out. Another is quickly
ignited, however; and as the blue-white glare once more illumines the
brig Blyth sees that there is but one man now on the forecastle--the man
who holds aloft the port-fire--and that the rest are gathered aft, busy
about the davit-tackles by which a boat is suspended on the larboard
quarter.

At this moment the whole firmament from zenith to horizon is rent
asunder, and for a single instant the entire universe seems to have been
set on fire by the fierce blaze of the lightning which flashes from the
rent, whilst the accompanying thunder crash is so deafening that even
the skipper, seasoned as he is, quails beneath the shock of it. For a
single instant the sea and everything upon it, from horizon to horizon,
is illumined by a light brighter than that of day; and in that single
instant Blyth sees not only the brig, enveloped in a perfect network of
fire, but also the huge piles of cloud overhead, twisted and distorted
into a hundred fantastic shapes by the forces at work within them, and
the black glistening water, carved into countless hollows and ridges by
the agitation of its surface; the whole apparently motionless as if
modelled in metal. Then comes the blackness of darkness, so thick and
impenetrable that the half-stunned skipper, scarcely conscious of where
he is, dares not move by so much as a single footstep lest he should
step overboard. The next moment down comes the rain, not in drops, not
even in sheets of water, but in a perfectly overwhelming deluge of such
density and volume that Blyth, bowing to his knees beneath it, gasps and
chokes like a drowning man.

But he speedily recovers his senses--he had need to, for he will soon
want them all--and, staggering to his feet, makes toward the mast, which
with the yard and dripping sail is now distinctly outlined against the
milky background of sea, milky by reason of the phosphorescence of its
surface being lashed into luminosity by the pouring rain. He grasps the
halliard of the sail, and with feverish haste proceeds to cast it adrift
from its belaying-pin, murmuring the while:

"Now God be merciful to me, a sinner: for I am too late. The time for
rescue is past!"

With utmost haste, yet with all the coolness and skill of a finished
seaman, he lowers the sail on deck and proceeds to secure it as well as
he can, for he knows only too well what the next act