was saved.

I did not care for the oar and the lost lantern now. I stood there and
waved the coat that I had dragged off at first sight of the vessel. I
knew her company must see me. I was as positive of rescue as of anything
in the world. The bark was flying before a stiff breeze, and it was head
on to the whale. I could not be missed.

Although the on-coming ship sailed so proudly, however, the breeze that
filled her canvas did not breathe upon my cheek. Nor was it the whining
of that favoring wind I had heard since first opening my eyes. I swung
about suddenly and looked to the south. Up from that direction rolled
the copper colored cloud--and it seemed veritably to roll along the
surface of the sea.

The sound came from this cloud. Before it the sea itself turned white.
Far above, the upper reaches of the rolling mist seemed to writhe as
though in travail of some great phenomenon. And it was so! Out of this
mass of vapor I saw born within the hour the most remarkable of all
sea-spells.

But at first my attention was divided between the tornado coming up from
the south and the bark approaching from the north. Not at once did the
favoring wind leave the craft. Where the dead whale lay seemed to be a
belt of calm between the bark and the coming tornado. And this craft in
which my hope was set was really a bark, by the way; I do not use the
word poetically. Her fore and mainmasts were square rigged while her
mizzen mast was rigged fore and aft like my little Wavecrest.

As I watched her I saw that her navigator had espied the coming tempest
from the south and the crew began to swarm among the sails. She still
came on at a spanking pace; but her canvas was reefed down rapidly until
there was nothing left but the foretopsail, flying jib and the spanker.
Soon these began to shake and then her fair wind left her entirely. She
had reached the belt of calm in which the dead whale and my sloop still
lay.

In my ears the savage voice from the cloud to the south'ard was now a
roar. The remaining canvas on the bark was reefed down. She lay waiting
for the tempest. I turned to descend from my rather slippery situation.
I preferred to be in the sloop when the tempest struck us, for possibly
I would be obliged to cast off from the dead mammal.

But before I could get off the whale the writhing cloud changed its
appearance--and changed so rapidly that I was held spellbound. It was
sweeping over the seas so close, it seemed t