ight again, coming this time out from the north-west. At
first the heave was only barely perceptible, but within half an hour it
had grown into a succession of long, steep undulations, running at right
angles athwart the old swell, causing the boat to heave and sway with a
singularly uneasy movement, and frequent vicious, jerky tugs at her
painter. Then we noticed that the clouds--which had hitherto been
motionless, or so nearly so that their movement was not to be detected--
were working with a writhing motion, as though they were chained giants
enduring the agonies of some dreadful torture, while the awful ruddy
light which they emitted glowed with a still fiercer and more lurid
radiance, lighting up the restlessly heaving ocean until it burned like
the flood of Phlegethon. Anon there appeared a few scattered shreds of
smoky scud speeding swiftly athwart the fiery canopy, and almost
immediately afterwards, with a low, weird, wailing sound, there swept
over us a scurrying blast that came and was gone again in a second. It
came out from the north-west, and judging that this was probably the
direction from which the gale itself would come, we at once rigged out
over the stern one of the two oars remaining in the boat, and swept the
bows of the gig round until they pointed due north-west. Scarcely had
we accomplished this when a second scuffle came whistling down upon us
from the same direction, and before it had swept out of hearing astern
there arose a low moaning to windward, that increased in strength and
volume with appalling rapidity. The sky suddenly grew black as ink
ahead, a lengthening line of ghostly white appeared stretching along the
horizon ahead and bearing down upon us with frightful speed; the moan
grew into a deep, thunderous, howling roar, and from that to a yell
which might have issued from the throats of a million fiends in torment;
the white wall of foam and the yelling fury of wind struck us at the
same instant; and the next thing I knew was that I was lying flat in the
stern-sheets, hatless, and with my face stinging as though it had been
cut with a whip; while the boat trembled and quivered from stem to stern
with the scourging of wind and water, and the spray blew in a continuous
sheet over the opening above me and into the sea astern, not a drop
falling into the boat. The long-expected hurricane was upon us; and now
all that remained was to see how long our frail craft could withstand
the o