e the inconsequence and
unreality of a dream. I could not quite realise that the shot-torn,
blood-bespattered wreck over which my gaze wandered wonderingly was the
erstwhile smart and dainty little schooner of which I had been so proud,
or that those maimed and disfigured forms lying broadcast about the deck
were really dead men; also, my head ached most consumedly, there was a
loud buzzing in my ears, the silence--or rather the comparative silence
that succeeded to the continuous, sharp explosions of the guns, the
excited shouts of the men, and the cries of the wounded--seemed weird,
uncanny, unnatural; for now there were no sounds save the wash of the
water alongside, an intermittent groaning--cut into now and then by the
sharp cry of a man under the hands of the surgeon--coming up through the
smashed skylight, and the low murmur of the men speaking to each other
from time to time where they had flung themselves down exhausted between
the guns. The fact was that I was suffering from the reaction that was
inevitable after so fierce and protracted a fight--the battle having
lasted for over an hour--and I felt that I must bestir myself or I
should become light-headed, or hysterical, or something equally foolish.
I, therefore, rose to my feet, called to the steward to bring me a
glass of water--the water-cask which usually stood on deck having been
smashed to staves early in the fight--and then gave orders for the men
to secure the guns. I also sent young Hinton down below to ascertain
and bring me the particulars of our casualties.

Thus far we had all been much too strenuously engaged, and our attention
too fully occupied, to take note of the weather; but now, as I glanced
round at the lowering heavens and observed their threatening aspect, I
bethought me that, fatigued though we all were, there still remained an
abundance of work to be done in preparation for the storm that was
evidently brewing. For the sky was now completely overcast with a pall
of dense, livid, purplish, slate-coloured cloud that clearly portended a
gale; the wind was coming in hot, fierce, intermittent puffs that
scourged the sea into miniature foam-flecked waves for a few seconds at
a time and then dropped almost to a calm again, and upon looking at the
barometer I saw that the mercury had fallen almost half-an-inch since I
had last looked at it shortly before the commencement of the fight. The
Spaniard had vanished, and the pirate schooner wa