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ily lengthening intervals as the storm passed away to the southward, the thunder died down to a distant booming and rumbling, and finally ceased altogether in about an hour and a half from the commencement of the outbreak, while the lightning became a harmless, fitful quivering of vari-coloured light along the southern horizon. But we were now in a most awkward predicament; a predicament that might easily become disastrous should it come on to blow, as was by no means impossible. For not only had three men been killed outright and eight more or less seriously injured by that terrible lightning-stroke, but our sails were gone, our foremast destroyed, and our rigging so badly injured that our main and mizzen-masts stood practically unsupported; while we had too much reason to fear that the masts and spars themselves were so seriously weakened by the play of the flames upon them as to have become of little or no use to us. And, to crown all, it was now so pitch-dark that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the full extent of our disaster until daylight. Our situation, however, was too critical to admit of our waiting until then; it was of vital importance that immediate steps should be taken to secure what had been left to us; and, with this object, the carpenter and boatswain procured lanterns with which they proceeded aloft to make a critical examination into the condition of the spars and rigging. They were thus engaged when the doctor, who had been down in the forecastle, attending to the hurts of the wounded men, appeared on deck, and, catching sight of Captain Chesney and myself standing together under the break of the poop, beckoned us to follow him into his cabin. CHAPTER TWELVE. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MANILLA. "I will only detain you a moment, gentlemen," said the medico, as he closed the cabin door behind us; "but I wanted to speak to you strictly in private; since, if overheard, what I have to say might possibly produce a panic. The fact is that I am afraid we are not yet aware of the full extent of the disaster that has happened to us. I have been down in the forecastle attending to the wounded men; and I had no sooner entered the place than I noticed a faint smell as of burning; but I attached no importance to it at the moment, believing that it arose from the fire on deck. But, instead of passing away, as it ought to have done, with the extinguishment of the fire, it has p
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TWELVE