y aloft and stow everything as quickly as
you can."

The men, fearful that the anticipated squall might burst upon the ship
before we were prepared for it, worked with a will, their efforts being
greatly facilitated by the lightning that was now quivering and flashing
all round the horizon with momentarily increasing splendour, and at such
brief intervals that the illumination might almost be said to be
continuous; while the deep, hollow rumble of the thunder might very well
have been mistaken for the booming of a distant cannonade. The effect
of the incessant flicker of the lightning was very weird; the tremulous
greenish-blue glare illuminating the ponderous masses and contorted
shapes of the black clouds overhead, the surface of the ink-black sea
around us, the distant proas, and the hull, spars, sails, and rigging of
the barque, with the moving figures aloft and at the jib-boom end, and
suffusing everything with so baleful and unearthly a light that only the
slightest effort of the imagination was needed to fancy ourselves a
phantom ship, manned by ghosts of the unquiet dead, floating upon the
sooty flood of the Styx, with the adamantine foundations of the world
arching ponderously and menacingly over our heads and reflecting from
their rugged surfaces the flashing of the flames of Phlegethon.

CHAPTER NINE.

AN EVENTFUL NIGHT.

The storm was approaching us rapidly; the rumble of the thunder grew
momentarily louder, and soon became continuous; and presently a vivid
flash of chain lightning streamed from the clouds low down upon the
northern horizon, followed, in about half a minute, by a smart peal of
thunder, much louder than any that we had yet heard. This was quickly
succeeded by a second flash, perceptibly nearer than the first--for the
interval between it and the resulting clap of thunder was noticeably
shorter, while the volume of sound was much greater and sharper. And
still the sheet lightning continued to play vividly and with scarcely a
second's intermission among the Titanic cloud-masses around and above
us, lighting up the entire scene from horizon to horizon; so that we now
had no difficulty whatever in following the movements of the various
proas in sight, the whole fleet of which were obviously converging upon
us as upon a common centre.

It was evident, from the uneasy glances cast by the men from time to
time upon these craft, that they fully shared my own and the chief
mate's suspicion