"Our captain was a very superstitious man, and this incident troubled
him, for I heard him say to the mate that he never knew any ship to
have good luck when once the rats began to leave her.

"Soon after this we took in our cargo of pineapples and bananas and
started for home. Our first three days' run was as pretty as ever was
made, and with the Gulf Stream to help us, it seemed as though we might
make New York in time for Christmas, after all. Then there came a
change--first a gale that drove us to the westward, and then light
head-winds, or no winds at all; and so we knocked round for three days
more, and on the day before Christmas we hadn't rounded Hatteras, let
alone made Sandy Hook, as we had hoped to do.

"It was a curious sort of a day, mild and hazy, with the sun showing
round and yellow as an orange. The skipper was uneasy, and kept
squinting at the weather, first on one side and then the other. We
heard him say to the mate that something was coming, for the mercury
was falling faster than he had ever seen it. Things stood so until
sunset, when the haze settled down thicker than ever. I was at the
wheel, when the skipper came on deck and ordered all canvas to be
stripped from her except the double-reefed main-sail and a corner of
the jib. He sung out to me to keep a sharp lookout for Hatteras Light,
and then went below again.

"When I caught sight of the light, about an hour later, and reported
it, it wasn't any brighter than it looked when you came on deck, a
while ago, Mark, and we were heading directly for it. When the skipper
came up and looked at it he told me to 'keep her so' while he took a
squint at the chart.

"He hadn't more than gone below again when there came such a gust of
wind and rain, with thunder and lightning close after, as to hide the
light and keep me busy for a few minutes holding the schooner up to it.

"The squall passed as suddenly as it came, and there was the light,
right over the end of the flying-jib-boom, burning as steady as ever,
but looking mighty blue, somehow. I thought it was the effect of the
mist, and tried to keep her headed for it. As I was getting terribly
puzzled and fussed up by what I thought was the strange action of the
compass, and by the way the little spiteful gusts of wind seemed to
come from every quarter at once, the skipper came on deck. Before he
had cleared the companion-way he asked,

"'How does Hatteras Light bear?'

"'Dead ahead, sir,' said