it's no use peering forward to discover on which side is the
new danger; for when your eye has gazed for a time at the lighted compass
it is powerless for half a minute to see in the dark space forward; or,
again, if you stare into the blackness to scan the faintest glimmer of a
sail ahead, then for some time after you cannot see the compass when
looking at it dazzled. This difficulty in sailing alone is the only one
we felt to be quite insuperable.

Again a steam whistle shrieked amid the thunder, and two eyes glared out
of the formless vapour and rain--the red and the green lights, the
signals that showed where she was steaming to. There was shouting from
her deck as she kept rounding and backing, no doubt for a man overboard.
As we slewed to starboard to avoid her, another black form loomed close
on the right; and what with wind, rain, thunder, and ships, there was
everything to confuse just when there was every need of cool decision.

It would be difficult for me to exaggerate the impressive spectacle that
passed along on the dark background of this night. To shew what others
thought, we may quote the following paragraph from the 'Pall Mall
Gazette' of next day, the 20th of August: {260}--

"The storm which raged in London through the whole of last night was
beyond question by far the most severe and protracted which has
occurred for many years. It began at half-past eight o'clock, after
a day of intense heat, which increased as the evening advanced,
though it never reached the sultriness which was remarked before the
storm of last week. The first peal of thunder was heard about nine,
and from that time till after five this morning it never ceased for
more than a few minutes, while the lightning may be said to have been
absolutely continuous. Its vivid character was something quite
unusual in the storms of recent summers, and the thunder by which it
was often instantaneously followed can only be described as terrific.
The storm reached its greatest violence between two and three
o'clock, when a smart gale of wind sprang up, and for about ten
minutes the tempest was really awful."

We had noticed some rockets sent up from Eastbourne earlier in the
evening; probably these were fireworks at a _fete_ there, but the rain
must have soon drowned the gala. Certainly it closed up my view of all
other lights but the lightning, though sometimes a shining line app