e bad weather, it might be some time before I should
have another opportunity to sleep, I decided to go below and get what
rest I could, especially as the sky was at that time perfectly clear,
with the stars shining brilliantly.

A sailor soon gets into the habit of falling asleep the moment his head
touches his pillow, and I was no exception to the rule, although my
newly assumed responsibilities caused me perhaps to sleep more lightly
than before; at all events, I had--even in the short time that we had
been at sea--acquired the faculty of being cognisant of almost
everything that happened on deck, even during the time that I was
asleep; and on this particular night it seemed to me that I had not been
in my berth more than ten minutes--though the time was actually close
upon two hours--when I heard the second mate quietly descending the
saloon staircase, and in another moment his knuckles were cautiously
tapping at the door of my cabin.

"Ay, ay," I answered drowsily; "what is it, Mr Forbes?"

"Sorry to disturb you, sir," was the reply, "but there seems to be
something brewing away down there to the south'ard and west'ard. It's
as black as a wolf's mouth thereaway; and there is a nasty cross swell
getting up, as you may feel for yourself, sir."

"All right," I returned, rolling reluctantly out of my berth; "I will be
on deck in a minute."

I was as good as my word; and upon popping my head outside the companion
I came to the conclusion that I had been called none too soon. There
was absolutely not a breath of air stirring save that created by the
heavy flapping of the canvas as the ship rolled, with a quick, uneasy
motion, almost gunwale-to; and upon interrogating the helmsman I learned
that he had lost all command over the vessel for fully an hour. It was,
as the second mate had said, intensely dark down in the south-western
quarter; and a very brief observation sufficed to demonstrate that the
pall of cloud which hid the heavens in that direction was slowly but
steadily spreading toward the zenith, star after star being blotted out
even as I watched them. The air, too, was close and oppressive as the
breath of an oven; while the surface of the sea was unusually agitated,
the run seeming to come from all points of the compass at once, and to
meet under the ship, causing her to "wallow" so awkwardly that the water
tumbled in over her rail in all directions, now forward, now aft, and
anon in the waist, and on