teasing of the
frolicsome zephyrs, was gradually working himself up into a passion,
which would vent itself, most probably, ere long in a much more telling
fashion than by this melancholy moan, so different to the sea-god's
usual voice of thunder!

Yes, it looked threatening enough in all conscience!

A brisk breeze had been blowing from the nor'-east before breakfast, but
this had subsequently shifted to the nor'ard at noon, veering back
again, first to the nor'-east and then to due east in the afternoon.
The wind freshened as the hours wore on, being now accompanied towards
sunset by frequent sharp gusts, a sign betokening plainly enough to a
seaman's eye that something stiffer was brewing up for us by-and-by.

Glancing over the side, I noticed that our brave vessel, the _Star of
the North_, was becoming very uneasy.

She was running under her jib and foresail, with fore-topsail and fore-
topgallantsail, being only square rigged forwards, like most ocean
steamers; but, in order to save coals and ease the engines, the skipper
had set the fore and main trysails with gaff-topsails and staysails as
well, piling on every rag he could spread.

With this press of canvas topping her unaccustomed hull, the poor old
barquey heeled over more and more as the violent gusts caught her
broadside-on at intervals, rolling, too, a bit on the wind fetching
round aft; while, her stern lifting as some bigger roller than usual
passed under her keel, the screw would whiz round aimlessly in mid air,
from missing its grip of the water, "racing," as sailors say in their
lingo, with a harsh grating jar that set my teeth on edge, and seemed to
vibrate through my very spinal marrow as I stood for a moment on the
line of deck immediately over the revolving shaft.

At the same time also that the afterpart of the vessel rose up on the
breast of one billowy mountain, her forefoot in turn would come down
with a resonant "thwack" into the valley intervening between this roller
and the next, the buoyant old barquey dipping her bows under and giving
the star-crowned maiden with golden ringlets, that did duty for her
figurehead, an impromptu shower bath as she parted the indignant waves
with her glistening black hull, sending them off on either hand with a
contemptuous "swish" on their trying in mad desperation to leap on
board, first to port and then to starboard, as the ship listed in her
roll.

It was, however, but a vain task for these mad my