, although never one
before in these latitudes so far from land."

"Are they dangerous at all, captain?" I asked, rather anxiously.

"No, Tom, not unless you got in the vortex of one, when it might twist
the spars out of a ship perhaps, though I never saw any mischief done by
one myself. Mind your helm," added Captain Miles to the man at the
wheel, whose office at present was a sinecure, for the ship was almost
becalmed and the rudder swaying to and fro from port to starboard as it
listed. "If the wind catches us suddenly we may be taken aback, and I
want you to be ready when I give the word."

This made the sailor who was "taking his trick" all alert, instead of
lounging over the spokes as he had been doing previously, listening to
our talk.

Presently, a quick puff of air came from the west again, and the
_Josephine_ began to gather way; but almost in an instant afterwards the
wind shifted right ahead, coming down with the cloud, and the yards were
at once braced round, the vessel being headed towards the north.

The cloud approached rapidly now on our weather bow; and, as it got
nearer, we could see that its bottom edge, which was attenuated to the
proportions of a slender pillar of vapour, seemed to be united to the
water, the sea, where it joined the surface, being greatly agitated,
foaming up in columns of spray that were circled round and round and
then drawn up in corkscrew fashion into the denser body above.

"Why, it's a water-spout!" exclaimed Mr Marline in great surprise.

"So it is," said the captain, a bit startled and perplexed too. "Look
sharp, Marline, and see to the hatches being battened down and the
scuppers open; for, if the blessed thing bursts immediately overhead, it
will flood our decks with a deluge of water worse than if we had shipped
a heavy sea."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered the other, scuttling down the poop-ladder to
attend to these orders; but he had hardly left the captain's side ere a
terrific gust of wind struck us, coming from the same direction as the
water-spout.

The instant after, the wind shifted round to the opposite quarter, and
then a series of squalls, hot and strong, seemed to assail us from
almost every point of the compass at once.

"Hands shorten sail!" roared out Captain Miles again, using the palms of
his two hands before his mouth for a speaking trumpet. "Be smart, men!
Some of you brail up the spanker here and man the jib downhaul. Right!
Now, away al