scorn,--

"Does he think we sleep? Ay, he has got it himself and would open our eyes
to what is coming! What does he imagine we have been about, since the
middle watch was set?"

Then, Wilder made a swift turn or two on the quarter-deck, never ceasing
to bend his quick glances from one quarter of the heavens to another; from
the black and lulling water on which his vessel was rolling, to the sails;
and from his silent and profoundly expectant crew, to the dim lines of
spars that were waving above his head, like so many pencils tracing their
curvilinear and wanton images over the murky volumes of the superincumbent
clouds.

"Lay the after-yards square!" he said, in a voice which was heard by every
man on deck, though his words were apparently spoken but little above his
breath. Even the creaking of the blocks, as the spars came slowly and
heavily round to the indicated position, contributed to the imposing
character of the moment, and sounded, in the ears of all the instructed
listeners, like notes of fearful preparation.

"Haul up the courses!" resumed Wilder, after a thoughtful, brief interval,
with the same eloquent calmness of manner. Then, taking another glance at
the threatening horizon, he added, with emphasis, "Furl them--furl them
both: Away aloft, and hand your courses," he continued, in a shout; "roll
them up, cheerily; in with them, boys, cheerily; in!"

The conscious seamen took their impulses from the tones of their
Commander. In a moment, twenty dark forms were seen leaping up the
rigging, with the alacrity of so many quadrupeds; and, in another minute,
the vast and powerful sheets of canvas were effectually rendered harmless,
by securing them in tight rolls to their respective spars. The men
descended as swiftly as they had mounted to the yards; and then succeeded
another short and breathing pause. At this moment, a candle would have
sent its flame perpendicularly towards the heavens. The ship, missing the
steadying power of the wind, rolled heavily in the troughs of the seas,
which, however began to be more diminutive, at each instant, as though the
startled element was recalling, into the security of its own vast bosom,
that portion of its particles which had, just before, been permitted to
gambol so madly over its surface. The water washed sullenly along the side
of the ship, or, as she labouring rose from one of her frequent falls into
the hollows of the waves, it shot back into the ocean from he