nd had died away
to nothing. The western half of the sky looked as though it were on
fire, and the horizon in that quarter was piled high with great smears
of dusky, smoky-looking cloud, heavily streaked with long splashes of
vivid orange and crimson colour. As a spectacle it was magnificent, but
the magnificence was gloomy, sombre, and threatening beyond anything
that I had ever beheld. Nevertheless, I had seen skies not altogether
unlike it before, and my experience had taught me that such gorgeously
lurid displays of colour always portended the approach of bad weather,
very frequently of the hurricane type. Furthermore, my "Sailing
Directions for the West Indies" warned me that we were now in a part of
the world which is subject to such terrific outbreaks of atmospheric
strife. I therefore resolved to take time by the forelock. Fortunately
in such small craft as schooners the amount of work involved in the
operation of "snugging-down" is not great, and in less than half an hour
we had got our yards and topmasts down on deck and the whole of our
canvas snugly stowed, with the exception of the foresail, which, having
been close-reefed, remained set, so that we might retain some sort of
command over the vessel.

Meanwhile the calm continued, but although the regular swell showed some
disposition to subside, a heavy cross-swell was rapidly rising, which
caused the schooner to plunge and roll in a jerky, irregular manner, and
with such violence that at length it became almost impossible to stand
without holding on to something, while to attempt to move about became
positively dangerous. To add still further to the unpleasantness of the
situation, the little hooker was constantly shipping water so heavily
over her rail, bows, and taffrail that we were frequently up to our
knees in it, although all the ports had been opened to allow it to run
off.

We contrived to complete all our preparations before it became too dark
to see; and it was well for us that we did so, for when the darkness
came it was a darkness that might be felt, for it was as though we were
hemmed in by great black walls which might be touched by merely
stretching forth one's hand, while the heat of the stagnant atmosphere
was so oppressive as to cause the perspiration to pour from us in
streams. This disagreeable state of affairs continued without break of
any kind until about five bells in the first watch, when a cry of
astonishment and alarm br