n, he
wakes up and says, 'Gad, boys! Did ye ever see sech a queer look in the
sky? I believe thar's a September gale brewin'."

"'It's a little wind storm, I reckon,' says Bachelder. Bachelder was
settin', with his legs curled up under him, mendin' sail, and he begun to
spin one o' them yarns o' hisn, with his voice pitched up middlin' high,
and the boys, they begun to laugh and cheer.

"Then Harvey says; 'I'll run up to headquarters, and find out about the
weather;' and clim' up the main-mast as limber as a squirrel, and when he
came back, thar' was Tommy's hat stickin' way up top o' the mast; so
Tommy, he promised to pay him--them two was always foolin' together, but
good-natered enough." The captain introduced this little incident, in the
midst of his narration, with a dull, pathetic gravity, "It was the last
thing we thought on, o' bein' fearful, or calk'latin' any danger. We
reckoned it was a brisk little shower comin' up, maybe, and the boys was
runnin' one another about gittin' into the cabin, and runnin' on about
the old craft.

"Then thar' come, all of a sudden, sech a strange feelin', as ef the
'arth and the water was a tremblin', and a dreadful moanin' sound runnin'
through 'em. Seemed as though it came swirlin' across the bay. Then it
bust on us in a fury.

"He was out, sorter lookin' around him, Bachelder was, and the wind took
Bachelder up, and keeled 'im over two or three times runnin'.

"Black it grew as the Jedgement day. Then come no sich rain as ever I
see, even the pourin'est, but the clouds fallin' all to once, and the
wind a scatterin' of 'em, and up on the cliffs, we could jest hear a
creakin' and a bendin' whar' the trees was turned as white as ghosts in
that 'ere blackness, and the old Bay, in sech a minute, was spinnin' into
foam.

"We was shelterin' around the old craft now, sure enough, and nobody
speakin' a word, but jest a holdin' our breaths a waitin', when, in among
them other noises, thar' come, out on the water, sech a low, dull sound
as sent the awful truth on us in a minute, and for a minute, that ar'
right hand of mine was numb.

"Then Harvey, he had hold o' me, a pintin' out, and whether he spoke a
word or not, I seen it--through wind and rain and foam, all in my eyes to
once, I seen--reelin' and tossin' and pitching out thar' on the Bay,
lost, lost for sure--I seen that fancy ship!

"Thar' wa'n't no hand on 'arth could guide it, now. Every second was like
to see it keeled