_Lily_ sprang gaily onward upon her course, mounting the watery
ridges and gliding down into the liquid valleys with the ease and grace
of a seabird, and without throwing so much as a drop of water upon her
deck.

The serenity and beauty of the night, the brilliancy of the stars which
studded the deep purple vault above me, and the gentle murmur of the
wind through the cutter's rigging, combined to produce a sensation of
solemnity almost amounting to melancholy within me, and my thoughts flew
back to the beloved sister I had so recently parted with, wondering
whether she was at that moment thinking of me, or whether we should ever
meet again, and, if so, how long hence and under what circumstances; and
so on, and so on, until I was recalled to myself by a sprinkling of
spray upon my cheek, whereupon I awoke, in the first place, to the fact
that the breeze had so far freshened that the _Lily_ was flying through
the water with her lee gunwale pretty well under; and, in the second, to
the knowledge that I had outstayed my watch a good half-hour.

I lost no time in calling Bob, and as soon as he came upon deck we got
our gaff-topsail down and our topmast housed.

I then went below and turned in; but I had time, before leaving the
deck, to notice that we went through the water quite as fast (if not a
trifle faster), now that our lee gunwale was just awash, as we did when
it was buried a couple of planks up the deck in water.

When Bob called me at the expiration of his watch, I found, on going on
deck, that the wind had continued to freshen all through the four hours
I had been below, and it was now blowing quite a strong breeze. It had
gradually hauled round to about north-west, too, which brought it well
upon our starboard quarter, and we were flying along at a tremendous
pace, with all our sheets eased well off.

But although by this change we were running _off_ the wind, and
consequently did not feel its full force, I decided to take down a
single reef in the mainsail, and shift the jib; for there was a windy
look in the sky that seemed to promise a very strong blow shortly. I
did not wish to disturb Bob when perhaps about half-way through his four
hours' sleep, so I got him to assist me in making my preparations before
he left the deck. And the promise was amply fulfilled as the sun rose
higher in the sky, the wind freshening rapidly, but hauling still
farther round from the northward as it did so.

By the tim