rowning. I would have--ah! look at that! Now the squall strikes her,
and over she goes. Taken flat aback, by heaven!"

It was as Mendouca had said; the brig when struck by the squall happened
to be lying head on to it, and her topmasts bent like reeds ere they
yielded to the pressure, and snapped short off by the caps. Then,
gathering stern-way, she paid off until she was nearly broadside on to
us, and we could see that her stern was becoming more and more depressed
as it was forced against the comparatively stubborn and unyielding
water, while her bow was raised proportionally high in the air. Foot by
foot, and second by second, her stern sank deeper and deeper into the
water until the latter was flush with her taffrail, and then, with the
aid of a telescope, I saw it go foaming and boiling in upon her deck,
driving the dense crowd of negroes forward foot by foot. By this time
her forefoot was raised clear out of the water, and, enveloped in mist
and spray though she was, I could see the bright, glassy glare of the
sky beyond and below it. For a second she remained thus; then her bow
rose still higher in the air, and, with a long sliding plunge, she
disappeared stern foremost.

"Gone to the bottom, every mother's _son of them_--as they richly
deserved!" exclaimed Mendouca, with a savage curse. "And if those
loafing vagabonds of mine don't bestir themselves they will follow in
double-quick time! What do you think, Dugdale? Shall we be able to
save them?"

I shook my head. "I would not give very much for their chance," I
replied. "It is a pity that you recalled them, I think. They would
have had time to reach the brig, and could at least have got her before
the wind, even had they no time to do more."

"Yes," he assented; "as it happened, they could. But how was a man to
know that the squall was going to hold off so long, and then burst at
the most unfortunate moment possible?"

All this, it must be understood, had happened in a very much shorter
time than it has taken to tell of it, and the squall had not reached as
far as the boats when the brig disappeared; while, as for us, we were
lying motionless in a still stagnant atmosphere, with our starboard
broadside presented fair to the approaching squall. But as the last
words left Mendouca's lips the squall swooped down upon the boats, and
in an instant they were lost sight of in a smother of mist and spray,
while the roar of the approaching squall, th