it on any account. You might as well turn in now,
if you care to do so," I added, "for I see it is not far off eight
bells, and I shall not attempt to sleep again."

"Thanks, no--not if I know it!" answered Cunningham. "Like yourself, I
have never seen anything of this kind before, and I intend to see all
that I can of it now that I have the opportunity. It began more than
half an hour ago, the ruddy glare growing out of the inky blackness so
subtly and imperceptibly that it is difficult to say precisely when it
began, but I became conscious of it when I got up to strike six bells.
Then it brightened so rapidly, and seemed so altogether unnatural, that
at length I began to feel jumpy about it, and decided that the time had
arrived when you ought to be called."

"Quite right," I agreed. "Well, if you won't turn in, perhaps you will
be good enough to keep a lookout here while I go for'ard and see to the
battening down. There is not much to be done, but the little that needs
doing might as well be done at once." And therewith I left him and
staggered along the squirming deck to the forecastle head, where Chips
and Sails were perched upon the windlass bitts, out of the way of the
water that was constantly slopping in over one bow or the other, talking
together in a low-pitched murmur, and staring awestruck at the
incandescent sky.

"Well, Chips," said I, "have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"Ay, sir, I seen the same thing once before, when I was in the
_Tenedos_, one of the China tea clippers," answered the carpenter. "We
was in the Injin Hocean at the time, homeward-bound. The skipper--Cap'n
Bowers, his name was--was down with dysentery at the time, and the mate
was one o' these here chaps that thinks they knows everything. He
'lowed that the weather signs didn't mean nothin' partic'lar, and
wouldn't so much as take in the skysails--because, d'ye see, we was
racin' home with another ship, and Mister Mate reckoned he wasn't goin'
to be scared into shortenin' down just because the weather looked a bit
unusual. Consequence was that we was on our beam-ends about a hour
a'terwards, with all three masts over the side and the ship threatenin'
to go down under us. A nice busy twenty-four hours we had of it a'ter
that, I can tell ye, Mr Temple, and it ended up in our crawlin' into
Table Bay under jury-masts, and lyin' there five solid months before the
new spars comed out to us and we re-rigged the old ba