sail down,
and some eight or ten hands were stretched along the length of the boom,
tightly rolling up the great folds of canvas, while four more were laid
out on the jibboom furling the jibs, when the storm seemed to reach its
height, and a great vivid flash of lightning, like a sword of blue-green
fire, lighting up the whole scene with its ghastly glare, fell, as it
appeared to us, full upon the little craft, and the next instant, as the
accompanying peal of thunder crashed and boomed in our ears, we all
distinctly saw a flash, as of fire, leap up aboard her, accompanied by a
great puff of whitish smoke. It was only momentary, and had the
appearance of an explosion; but it was perfectly apparent that something
more or less serious had happened to the little vessel. After an
appreciable pause on the part of her crew, as though they were
collecting their faculties in the face of some sudden disaster, they
broke at once into a state of feverish activity, rushing hither and
thither about her decks like men who are attempting to do half a dozen
separate and distinct things at the same moment. Then came another
flash of flame on board her; and all in a moment, as it seemed to us,
the whole after part of her burst into a fierce blaze!

"Why, Gurney!" I exclaimed, turning to where the man stood with his
sweetheart: "that last flash of lightning seems to have set the schooner
on fire."

"Yes," he answered; "and she is blazing like a tar barrel. If the rain
doesn't come within the next two or three minutes they will have their
work cut out to extinguish the flames."

"Ay," cut in Saunders, "you are right there, George. Look how she
flares up. Why, she must be as dry as tinder. Ah! there they go with
their buckets. But what is the use of buckets against a blaze like
that; why don't they get their hose along and start their head-pump?
They'll never put out that fire by balin' up water from over the side."

"No," assented Gurney, "nor by means of a hose and head-pump either.
Nothing but a good downpour of rain will do them any good now, and the
rain seems to be holding off. Scissors! that ought to fetch it down"--
as another terrific flash of lightning illuminated the whole scene from
horizon to horizon.

But it did not; the lightning--fierce, vivid, and baleful--continued to
flash, the thunder rolled and crashed and reverberated in one continuous
deafening uproar; but the rain held off for a good five minutes longe