materials as an ordinary air-cushion, and distended in the same way.
This was enclosed in a strong net of three-strand sinnet, which net was
attached to the buoy-rope.

We hove the craft to whilst we were preparing the anchor, and glad
enough was I when it was ready; for by this time the sea was running so
high and breaking so heavily, that I was afraid once or twice, when we
were caught broadside-to, that we should be capsized.

We let go the anchor with only two fathoms of buoy-rope, so as to sink
it just deep enough to keep us head to sea without materially
interfering with the craft's drift, as we thought we should ride all the
easier for such an arrangement, and so it proved.

As soon as the anchor was let go, we got our head-sail in, ran in the
bowsprit, and got our topmast on deck; the trysail was close-reefed, and
the sheet trimmed amidships, the anchor-light hoisted well up on the
fore-stay, and our preparations for the night were complete.

By this time it was blowing tremendously heavy, and the howling of the
gale overhead, the shriek of the wind through our scanty rigging, and
the hiss of the foaming water around us, mingled into such a deafening
sound that Bob and I had fairly to _shout_, even when close alongside of
each other, to make ourselves heard. And then it began to thunder and
lighten heavily, still further increasing the wild and impressive
grandeur of the scene upon which we gazed in awe-struck admiration.

At one moment all would be deep black pitchy night, lighted up only by
the pale unearthly shimmer of some foaming wave-crest as it rolled
menacingly down upon us, gleaming with phosphorescent light; anon the
canopy above would be rent asunder by the vivid lightning-flash, and for
an instant the vast whirling forms of the torn and shredded clouds would
be revealed, with a momentary vision of the writhing, leaping, and
storm-driven waters beneath them, illumined by the ghastly glare of the
levin-brand, and stricken into sudden rigidity by the rapidity of the
flash.

We stayed on deck for about an hour after our anchor was let go,
watching this grand manifestation of the power of the Deity, sublime as
terrible, terrible as sublime; and then, finding that no improvement
suggested itself in our arrangements, and that the _Lily_ rode like a
cork over the mountain-billows--though occasionally the comb of a more
than usually heavy sea would curl in over the bows and send a foaming
cataract of w