ot, breathless
night, I stretched myself out on the wheel grating, shortly after eight
bells of the second dog-watch, and was soon fast asleep, despite the
hardness of my bed, while Cunningham sat near me, keeping such a lookout
as was possible under the circumstances.

It was seven bells, or within half an hour of midnight, when Cunningham
awoke me.

"Sorry to disturb you before your time, old chap," he apologised. "I
have been hoping that it might not be necessary to awake you until eight
bells, but--just look at that sky! What on earth does it mean; and what
is going to happen?"

I had started up, broad awake, the instant that Cunningham's hand
touched my shoulder, and had at once become conscious of the very
extraordinary and portentous aspect of the sky; it was therefore quite
unnecessary for me to ask what he meant. When, soon after the
expiration of the second dog-watch, I had stretched myself out and
fallen asleep on the wheel grating, the darkness had been as opaque as
that of Egypt when Moses stretched forth his hand and there was a thick
darkness in all the land for the space of three days, during which the
Egyptians saw not one another, neither rose any from his place; but now,
the moment that I opened my eyes, I saw that the plunging schooner, the
restless, heaving surface of the ocean, and the overarching dome of the
sky, packed with enormous masses of slowly working cloud, were all
suffused with ruddy light, such as might be emitted by a volcano in
furious eruption. Yet no flaming crater was anywhere visible, nor did
the light flicker or wax and wane, as it would have done had it issued
from such a source; it was perfectly steady, and after I had gazed upon
it for a time I could come to no other conclusion than that it emanated
from the clouds themselves, which glowed with the colour of iron heated
to a low red-heat. I had never before beheld such a weird,
awe-inspiring spectacle, but as I gazed upon it the memory came to me
that I had somewhere read of something similar, and I also remembered
that it had been described as the precursor of a hurricane, or some
similar atmospheric convulsion.

"I am afraid it means a heavy blow, a hurricane--or typhoon as they call
it in these seas," said I: "and I am very glad that you called me, for I
will take the hint and have the schooner battened down forthwith; also
this is the first time I have ever witnessed such a phenomenon, and I
would not have missed