s quite convinced that the Plate had fooled Captain West. So
was Miss West convinced, and, being a favoured person like myself, she
frankly told me so.

"Father will be setting sail in half an hour," she prophesied.

What superior weather-sense Captain West possesses I know not, save that
it is his by Samurai right. The sky, as I have said, was clear. The air
was brittle--sparkling gloriously in the windy sun. And yet, behold, in
a brief quarter of an hour, the change that took place. I had just
returned from a trip below, and Miss West was venting her scorn on the
River Plate and promising to go below to the sewing-machine, when we
heard Mr. Pike groan. It was a whimsical groan of disgust, contrition,
and acknowledgment of inferiority before the master.

"Here comes the whole River Plate," was what he groaned.

Following his gaze to the south-west, we saw it coming. It was a cloud-
mass that blotted out the sunlight and the day. It seemed to swell and
belch and roll over and over on itself as it advanced with a rapidity
that told of enormous wind behind it and in it. Its speed was headlong,
terrific; and, beneath it, covering the sea, advancing with it, was a
gray bank of mist.

Captain West spoke to the mate, who bawled the order along, and the
watch, reinforced by the watch below, began dewing up the mainsail and
foresail and climbing into the rigging.

"Keep off! Put your wheel over! Hard over!" Captain West called gently
to the helmsman.

And the big wheel spun around, and the _Elsinore's_ bow fell off so that
she might not be caught aback by the onslaught of wind.

Thunder rode in that rushing, rolling blackness of cloud; and it was rent
by lightning as it fell upon us.

Then it was rain, wind, obscureness of gloom, and lightning. I caught a
glimpse of the men on the lower-yards as they were blotted from view and
as the _Elsinore_ heeled over and down. There were fifteen men of them
to each yard, and the gaskets were well passed ere we were struck. How
they regained the deck I do not know, I never saw; for the _Elsinore_,
under only upper- and lower-topsails, lay down on her side, her port-rail
buried in the sea, and did not rise.

There was no maintaining an unsupported upright position on that acute
slant of deck. Everybody held on. Mr. Pike frankly gripped the poop-
rail with both hands, and Miss West and I made frantic clutches and
scrambled for footing. But I noticed that the Samur