our jury-canvas at the rate of five to six knots per hour. Toward
evening, however, on the second day, signs of a change of weather began
to manifest themselves, the sky to windward losing its rich tint of blue
and becoming pallid and hard, streaked with mares' tails and flecked
with small, smoky-looking, swift-flying clouds, while the setting sun,
as he neared the horizon, lost his radiance and became a mere shapeless
blotch of angry red that finally seemed to dissolve and disappear in a
broad bank of slate-hued vapour. The sea too changed its colour, from
the clear steel-blue that it had hitherto worn to the hue of indigo
smirched with black. Moreover, I heard the captain remark to Mr Dawson
that the mercury was falling and that he feared we were in for a dirty
night.

And, indeed, so it seemed; for about the middle of the second dog-watch
the wind lulled perceptibly and we had a sharp rain-squall, soon after
which it breezed up again, the wind coming first of all in gusts and
then in a strong breeze that, as the night wore on, steadily increased
until it was blowing half a gale, with every indication of worse to
come. The sea, too, rose rapidly, and came rushing down upon our
starboard quarter, high, steep, and foam-crested, causing the frigate to
roll and tumble about most unpleasantly under her jury-rig and short
canvas. Altogether, the prospects for the night were so exceedingly
unpromising that I must plead guilty to having experienced a selfish joy
at the reflection that it was my eight hours in.

When I went on deck at midnight that night, I found that the wind had
increased to a whole gale, with a very high and confused sea running,
over which the poor maimed _Althea_ was wallowing along at a speed of
about eight and a half knots, with a dismal groaning of timbers that
harmonised lugubriously with the clank of the chain pumps and the swash
of water washing nearly knee-deep about the decks--for the hooker
laboured so heavily that she was leaking like a basket, necessitating
the unremitting use of the pumps throughout the watch. And--worst of
all--Keene whispered to me that, even with the pumps going constantly,
the water was slowly but distinctly gaining. And thus it continued all
through the middle watch.

It was hoped that the gale would not be of long duration, but at eight
bells next morning the news was that the mercury was still falling,
while the wind, instead of evincing a disposition to modera