r instant was flying
before the gale like a frightened thing, at a speed which I dare venture
to say she had never before attained.

It was a wild scene in the midst of which I now found myself. With the
outburst of the gale the supernatural, ruddy glow of the sky had
suddenly faded, to be succeeded by a frightful gloom, which yet was not
actual darkness, for the whole surface of the sea had in a few brief
seconds become a level sheet of boiling foam, so strongly phosphorescent
that it emitted light enough for me to see, with tolerable distinctness,
the hull, mast, and sail of the felucca, and to make out the position
and character of the principal objects about her deck; and this same
weird, ghostly light it probably was that, reflected from the clouds,
enabled me also to discern their forms and to distinguish that they were
no longer the rounded, swelling masses that they had hitherto been, but
were now rent and tattered and ragged with the mad fury of the wind that
had seized upon them and was dragging them at headlong speed athwart the
arch of heaven. The air, too, was full of spindrift, to perhaps double
the height of the felucca's mast, and that too was luminous with a
faint, green, misty light that imparted a weird, unreal aspect to
everything it shone upon; an effect which was further heightened by the
unearthly screaming and howling of the gale.

There was nothing for it but to keep the felucca running dead before the
gale; and, fortunately for me, this was by no means a difficult feat, as
the craft steered as is easily as a boat,--indeed she almost steered
herself. For the first half-hour or so nothing special occurred, the
hurricane continuing to blow as furiously as at its first mad outfly,
while the felucca sped before it as smoothly and steadily as though
mounted on wheels and running upon a perfectly smooth and level road; my
only fear just then being that the mast would go over the bows, or the
sail be blown out of its bolt-ropes. The spar, however, was a good one,
and well stayed, while the sail was practically new, and the gear was
good; everything therefore held, although I could _feel_ that the little
craft was straining to an alarming extent. But about half an hour, or
thereabout, after the gale first struck us, a movement of the hull--
gentle and easy at first, but rapidly increasing--told me that the sea
was beginning to rise; and soon after that my troubles commenced in
earnest, for the sea