ke in
the gaff-topsail, and bowse down a double reef in the mainsail, and I
will in foresail and shift the jib. I suppose there is a storm-jib
somewhere on board?"

"Down in the locker, forward," said he. "Be careful to close the hatch
securely when you come up, signor, or we shall be swamped in less than
ten minutes; she will bury herself in the breeze that we are going to
have."

We all three worked like Trojans, and in a remarkably short space of
time had the "Mouette"--as I found the cutter was named--under double-
reefed mainsail and storm-jib, the latter well in along the bowsprit,
with topmast lowered as far as it would come, the fore-hatch and cabin
skylight battened down, and everything made snug and ready for a regular
stand-up fight with the elements.

While we were busy with these preparations, I admonished Giaccomo to
keep a smart lookout, and I was careful also to do the same myself, in
case the guarda-costa should endeavour to cut matters short by sending
away a boat after us; but the man assured me that the skipper of the
craft knew too well what he was about to risk the loss of a boat's crew
by sending them away under such threatening conditions of weather.

Smart as we had been in making our preparations, we were only barely in
time. We had just comfortably completed our work, and I had established
myself at the tiller, with Giaccomo at the mainsheet, and Francois--as
the French lad called himself--at the jib-sheet, when there came a
terrific flash of lightning, green and baleful, illumining for a single
instant the entire scene, and revealing our pertinacious friend, the
"Vigilant," in her old berth astern, with her long tapering yards
lowered to the deck, and two stumpy lugs and a pocket-handkerchief of a
jib hoisted in their place. Then, as the opaque darkness closed down
upon us again, there followed the long deep reverberating roll of the
thunder. Another vivid flash quickly succeeded, the thunder this time
being much louder and nearer; and then, after a pause of about a minute,
there came a perfect _blast_ of lightning, so intensely bright that the
whole atmosphere appeared for one brief moment to be literally on fire.
Simultaneously with the flash came the awful deafening crackling crash
of the thunder, the terrific detonations of which completely stunned and
unnerved me while they lasted, so overpowering were they in comparison
with anything of the kind which I had before heard. We ha