anded down to the two
seamen.

I stepped into the cabin and the captain put a bottle of brandy and
some cold water on the table. He asked me several questions about the
brig, and how long we were out, and where we were from, and the like,
and one thing leading to another, he happened to mention the town he
was born in, which was my native place too--Ashford, in the county of
Kent,--and here was now a topic to set us yarning, for I knew some of
his friends and he knew some of mine; and the talk seemed to do him so
much good, whilst it was so agreeable to me, that neither of us seemed
in a hurry to end it. This is the only excuse I can offer for
lingering on the barque longer than, as circumstances proved, I ought
to have done.

At last I got up and said I must be off, and I thanked him most kindly
for the obliging reception of me, and for his goodness in supplying
the brig with water, and I gave him Captain Blow's compliments, and
desired to know if we could accommodate him in any way in return. He
answered "Nothing, nothing," stepping through the hatch as he said it,
and an instant after he set up his throat in a cry.

"You 'll have to bear a hand aboard," says he, with a face of
astonishment; "look yonder! 'T is rolling down upon your brig like
smoke." He pointed to the vessel, and a little way past her I spied a
long line of white vapour no higher than Dover cliff as it looked, but
as dense as those rocks of chalk too. The sun made steam of it, but if
already it was putting a likeness of its own blankness into the sky
over it, which seemed to be dying out, as the vapour came along, as
the light perishes in a looking-glass upon which you breathe. I ran to
the side and saw my boat under the gang-way and the two men in her.
The cask was in the stern of the boat. The master of the barque cried
out to me: "Will you not stay till that smother clears? You may lose
your brig in it." I replied: "No, sir, thank you. I will take my
chance. It is more likely I should lose her by remaining here," and
with a flourish of the hand I dropped over the side and entered the
boat. "Now," cried I, "pull like the devil, men."

They threw their oars over and fell to rowing fiercely; but the barque
was not five cables' length astern of us when the first of the white
cliff of vapour smote the _Hindoo Merchant,_ and she vanished in it
like a star in a cloud. There was a fresh breeze of wind behind that
line of sweeping thickness, and in pl