when the ship took another sheer directly towards us.

She was now close aboard of us, and not a soul could I see on the look-
out. Bob rushed aft, with his eye on the ship's bowsprit, evidently
prepared for a spring; whilst I shifted the tiller and flattened in the
trysail sheet once more. That saved us. The cutter luffed just in
time, and shot literally from beneath the ship's bows. So close were
we, that had the stranger been _pitching_ instead of _'scending_ at the
moment, her jib-boom-end must have passed through the peak of our
trysail.

It may seem to the uninitiated an easy matter to keep out of an
approaching ship's way, by simply observing the precise direction in
which she is steering; but, as a matter of fact, a ship, when running
before the wind, sails in anything but a straight line, _sheering_ first
one way and then another, and it is quite impossible for a spectator to
judge with accuracy in which direction she will sheer at a given moment;
hence the danger in which we so unexpectedly found ourselves.

CHAPTER NINE.

A CAPE HORN GALE.

We stood on to the southward and westward during the remainder of that
day, the wind continuing still to freshen, and the sea getting up with
most fearful rapidity. The glass fell slowly too, and there appeared to
be every prospect of our getting a taste of the quality of the weather
for which Cape Horn is so notorious.

As the sun set, the veil of cloud-wrack which had obscured the heavens
all day was rent asunder in the western quarter, and we caught a glimpse
of the great luminary hanging upon the verge of the horizon like a ball
of molten copper.

His level beams shot for a few moments across the broad expanse of the
heaving and wildly-leaping waters, tinging the wave-crests immediately
in his wake with deep blood-red, whilst all around elsewhere the angry
ocean was darkest indigo. A few rays shot upward, gleaming wildly among
the flying scud, and then the orb of day sank into the ocean, shooting
abroad as he did so a sudden baleful crimson glare, which gradually died
out in the gloom of increasing storm and coming night.

Bob stood by my side watching the wild scene I have so feebly described,
and as the sun disappeared, he turned to me and remarked:

"My eyes, Harry! what d'ye think of that, lad? To my mind it needs no
prophet to tell us with that afore our eyes that we're booked for a
reg'lar thorough-bred Cape Horn gale of wind; and my advice a