ng across the
glassy water to break it; and the suspense and anxiety of waiting,
despite one's better judgment, for such a sound, caused the discordant
noises inboard to quickly become acutely distressing. At least such was
my feeling at the time, a feeling that possibly may have grown out of
the increasing smart of my wound, which was now giving me _so much_ pain
that I had little hope of getting any sleep that night, especially as
the heat below was absolutely stifling.

Gradually--so gradually that its approach was scarcely perceptible--the
storm worked its way in our direction, the brighter glimmer and
increasing frequency of the sheet-lightning alone indicating that it was
nearing us, until just about eight bells in the dog-watch the first
faint mutterings of distant thunder became audible, while the vast piles
of sooty cloud that overhung us seemed momentarily to assume new and
more menacing shapes, as the now almost continuous quivering of the
lightning revealed them to us. Anon, low down in the western sky there
flashed out a vivid, sun-bright stream of fire that, distant as it was,
lighted up the whole sea from horizon to horizon, tipping the ridges of
the swell with twisted lines of gold, and transfiguring the distant
_Dolores_ into a picture of indescribable, fairy-like beauty, as it
brought sharply into momentary distinctness every sail and spar and
delicate web of rigging tracery. A low, deep rumble of thunder
followed, which was quickly succeeded by another flash, nearer and more
dazzlingly brilliant than the first; and now the storm seemed to gather
apace, the lightning-flashes following each other so rapidly that very
soon the booming rumble of the thunder became continuous, as did the
blaze of the sheet-lightning, which was now flickering among the clouds
in half a dozen places at once, bringing out into powerful relief their
titanic masses, weirdly changing shapes, and varied hues, and converting
the erstwhile Cimmerian darkness into a quivering, supernatural light,
that caused the ocean to glow like molten steel, and revealed every
object belonging to the ship as distinctly as though it had been
illuminated by a port-fire. So vivid and continuous was the light that
I not only distinctly saw the fin of a shark fully half a mile distant,
but was also able to watch his leisurely progress until he had increased
his distance so greatly as to be no longer distinguishable. The
continuous quivering flash