instant the air became so thick with the driving scud-water that
every window in the pilot-house had to be closed to prevent the inmates
being drenched to the skin. In less than five minutes the deck was wet
fore and aft with the flying spray; and before a quarter of an hour had
elapsed the _Flying Fish_ was pitching her fore-deck clean under water.

At its commencement the gale blew from about south-east, or dead in
their teeth; and the revolutions of the engines were increased to a rate
which, under ordinary circumstances, would have given the ship a speed
of some twenty-five knots, but which now drove her ahead at the rate of
only some fifteen knots against the gale. As the afternoon wore on, the
wind gradually "backed," until, at four p.m., it was blowing from due
south. This confirmed Mildmay in his suspicion that they had fallen in
with one of those most terrible of storms--_a cyclone_!

At half-past four o'clock--at which time the gale was raging with
hurricane force--a sail was made out, bearing about one point on the
_Flying Fish's_ port bow, and about four miles distant. As well as
could be made out, she appeared to be barque-rigged; and, on approaching
her more closely, this proved to be the case. She was a vessel of some
four hundred tons register, pretty deep in the water; and--though she
was hove-to under close-reefed fore and main topsails--was making
frightfully bad weather of it, the seas sweeping clear and clean over
her, fore and aft, every time she met them.

The moment that the stranger was first sighted, Mildmay opened one of
the windows--at the risk of getting drenched to the skin--and brought a
telescope to bear upon her. He had scarcely brought her within the
field of vision when he exclaimed agitatedly:

"Good Heavens! what is the man about? He has hove-to his ship _on the
port tack_; does he not know he is in a cyclone?"

"What does it matter which tack the vessel is hove-to upon?" asked Sir
Reginald with a smile at Mildmay's excitement.

"All the difference in the world, my dear sir," was the reply. "We are
in the Northern Hemisphere; in which--as you have already had an
opportunity of observing--cyclones _invariably_ revolve _against_ the
apparent course of the sun. A knowledge of this fact teaches the wary
seaman to heave-to on the _starboard_ tack; by doing which his ship
dodges _away from_ the fatal centre or `eye' of the storm. This fellow,
however, by heaving-to on the po