nary happening then to rise late. The wind was piping up strong and
sending the trade clouds scurrying across the spangled sky at a great
pace; and there was a fair amount of sea running, into which the
_Mermaid_ dug her bluff bows viciously, smothering her forecastle with
spray and darkening the weather clew of her fore-course with it halfway
up to the yard. Miss Trevor was on deck, taking the air, and graciously
favouring Leslie with her company for an hour or two prior to turning in
for the night. The pair were promenading the deck together, fore and
aft, between the stern grating and the mainmast, the girl availing
herself of the support of Leslie's arm to steady her upon the dancing
deck.

Suddenly, as they were in the act of wheeling round abreast the main
rigging, a flash of ruddy light illumined the tumbling surface of the
sea, the deck they trod, the sails, and every detail of the brig's
equipment; and glancing skyward, they beheld a meteor trailing a long
tail of scintillating sparks behind it, high aloft over the brig's port
quarter. With inconceivable rapidity the glowing object increased in
size, its light meanwhile changing as rapidly from red to a dazzling
white, until the light became almost as intense as that of the noonday
sun. It was a magnificent spectacle, but one also full of unspeakable
horror for those aboard the brig who stood gazing in speechless
fascination at it; for it was evident that it was not only falling
through the air at a speed far surpassing that of a cannon shot, _but
was also coming straight for the brig_. A deep humming sound that, as
it seemed, in the space of a single moment increased to an almost
deafening scream, marked the speed of its flight through the air; and as
Leslie grasped the fact that in another second that enormous glowing
mass--weighing, as he conceived, some hundreds of tons--must infallibly
strike the brig and smash her to atoms, he instinctively interposed his
own body between his companion and the gigantic hurtling missile--as
though such frail protection could have been of any service to her!
Then, while it was still some two hundred yards from the brig--at which
distance the heat of it fell upon their white upturned faces like the
breath of a suddenly opened furnace--the dazzling white-hot mass burst
with a deafening explosion into a thousand pieces, some of which flew
hurtling over and about the brig, but happily without touching her; and
the danger