either side with the utmost impartiality. The
water was everywhere of an inky blackness, save along the ship's bends
and where she dipped it in over her rail. This disturbed water looked,
at a short distance, as though it had been diluted with milk; but,
examined closely, it was found to glow with a faint fire, like the
glimmer of summer lightning, with small star-like points of stronger
light thickly scattered through it. The most perfect silence reigned
outside the ship, but on board there was quite a small Babel of sound
storming about us; the creaking of yard-parrels and trusses aloft,
mingled with the loud flap of the canvas to the roll of the ship, the
"cheep" of block-sheaves, the sharp "slatting" of suddenly tautened
gear, and the pattering of reef-points; while on deck there was the
monotonous swish of water washing athwart the planks from side to side,
with the choking gurgle of the water spouting up through the scuppers,
and the heavy splashing sound of the brine as it poured in over the
bulwarks; the whole set to a dismal accompaniment of creaking timbers,
rattling doors, and breaking crockery below.

"How long has the weather been like this, Mr Forbes?" I asked, as my
subordinate stood a few paces apart from me, waiting to hear what I had
to say about the aspect of things in general.

"Well, sir," he replied, "that is not a very easy question to answer.
It has been gathering ever since about half an hour after you went
below; but the change has been going on so imperceptibly that it
scarcely forced itself upon my attention until just before--Ah! did you
hear that, sir?"

A low, faint, weird, moaning sound, scarcely perceptible, had floated to
the ship, causing the mate to interrupt himself suddenly; and at the
same moment a light, evanescent puff of hot air seemed to sweep past us.

"Yes," said I, "I both heard and felt it. We are going to have a heavy
squall, if nothing worse, out of that blackness yonder. Turn the hands
up at once, and let them go to work to strip the ship without loss of
time. Get in all your light flying kites first of all, and stow them
snugly; then brail in your mizzen and stow it; let run your staysail
halliards, and haul up your courses. We will leave nothing spread but
the two topsails and the fore-topmast-staysail; then, let what will
come, we shall be prepared for it."

Forbes hurried away to execute this order, and next moment there came
the sounds of a most unmerci