as plain as plain can
be. Yes, sir, it's hard to die, even out off a North Sea smack, as you
say. Just before the '66 breeze I used often to think, 'Shall I go
overboard?' but when we was disabled, and skipper told us 'twas every
man for hisself, I looked queer. My arm says there's bad a-comin', and I
know you don't skeer easy, or a wouldn't tell you."

A hollow sound filled the whole arch of the sky; it was a great,
bewildering sound like a cry--an immense imprecation of some stricken
Titan.

"What can that be?" murmured Lennard, with his bold face blanched. "That
caps everything."

The masterful sound held on for a little, and then sank into a tired
sort of moan.

"Callin' them together, sir,--that's what some o' the West Country chaps
calls the King o' the Winds speakin'. It's only snow gettin' locked in
the sky, and you'll see it come away in a little."

"I don't know what it is, Ebenezer, but I don't like it."

On deck the night was black, the splendid green of the west had burnt
out, and a breeze was making little efforts from time to time, with
little hollow moans.

"Bad, bad, bad, bad, sir," barked the skipper, angrily.

The vanward flights of twirling flakes came on then, as if suddenly
unleashed, the wind sprang up, and the great fight began. If you,
whoever you may be, and two more strong men had tried to shut an
ordinary door in the teeth of that first shock, you would have failed,
for the momentum was like that of iron.

"Steady, and look out," the skipper yelled.

The third hand was lifted off his feet and dashed into the lee channels.
Ferrier fought hard, but he was clutched by the hand of the wind, and
held against the mizen-mast; he could just clutch the rest in which a
lifebuoy was hanging, and that alone saved him from being felled.

The Lord is a Man of War! Surely His hosts were abroad now. No work of
man's hands could endure the onset of the forces let loose on that bad
night. The sea jumped up like magic, and hurried before the lash of the
wind. Then, with a darkening swoop, came the snowstorm, hurled along on
wide wings; the last remnants of light fled; the vessel was shut in, and
the devoted company on board could only grope in the murk on deck. No
one would stay below, for the sudden, unexampled assault of the
hurricane had touched the nerve of the coolest.

I am told by one who was on a wide heath at the beginning of that
hurricane, that he was coated with solid ice from head t