ut again, clear and strong, drying our washing in
about half an hour, and to complete the good work, a nice, steady wind
from the north-east sprang up, and sent us bowling merrily along upon
our course once more, with all our flying-kites aloft to woo the welcome
breeze, the glass beginning to rise again immediately the thunderstorm
was over.

Two nights after this, the wind still holding favourable, though rather
fresher, so that our spars had as much as they could do, notwithstanding
our preventer backstays, to bear the strain of our enormous spinnaker
and balloon gaff-topsail, and the little _Water Lily_ flying along at--
as our patent log told us--over thirteen knots, we dashed past a half-
consumed hencoop, a few charred pieces of planking, and some half-burnt
spars, all of which had the appearance of having been but a short time
in the water.

The spars were those of a ship of about a thousand tons; and we came to
the conclusion that it was one of those melancholy cases in which the
good ship, after perhaps successfully battling with a hundred storms, is
made to succumb at last to that terrible foe to seamen, a fire, ignited
by the merest and apparently most trivial of accidents. But the reader
will see, further on, that we had but too good reason to alter this
opinion.

We passed this wreckage about the middle of the second dog-watch, while
Bob and I were discussing the propriety of shortening sail somewhat for
the night; but as the breeze seemed disposed to grow lighter rather than
otherwise, we decided to let everything stand for the present. When Bob
called me at midnight, however, the wind had hauled so far round from
the eastward that it became necessary to shift the spinnaker to the
bowsprit-end; and this we accordingly did.

The wind had fallen much lighter while I was below, it continued to drop
all my watch, and when I turned out next morning there was barely enough
of it to fan us along at about three knots.

As the sun rose higher it died away altogether, and it was as much as we
could do, through the day, to keep the cutter's head in the right
direction. This would have been wearisome work in the tropics; but we
had been out of them for some days, and were getting well to the
southward, and the air began to feel quite fresh and chilly at night; so
much so, indeed, that for the last night or two Bob and I had found our
thick pilot jackets a very great comfort.

At last, by the time that tea w