ket, and it ran somewhat thus:--

"But I hear my lover's voice wailing in the night, and I go to find him;
for my loneliness is not to be borne. May God have mercy upon me!"

And that was all.

For a day and a night we stood out from the land towards the North,
having a steady breeze to which we set our lug sails, and so made very
good way, the sea being quiet, though with a slow, lumbering swell from
the Southward.

It was on the morning of the second day of our escape that we met with
the beginnings of our adventure into the Silent Sea, the which I am about
to make as clear as I am able.

The night had been quiet, and the breeze steady until near on to the
dawn, when the wind slacked away to nothing, and we lay there waiting,
perchance the sun should bring the breeze with it. And this it did; but
no such wind as we did desire; for when the morning came upon us, we
discovered all that part of the sky to be full of a fiery redness, which
presently spread away down to the South, so that an entire quarter of the
heavens was, as it seemed to us, a mighty arc of blood-colored fire.

Now, at the sight of these omens, the bo'sun gave orders to prepare the
boats for the storm which we had reason to expect, looking for it in the
South, for it was from that direction that the swell came rolling upon
us. With this intent, we roused out so much heavy canvas as the boats
contained, for we had gotten a bolt and a half from the hulk in the
creek; also the boat covers which we could lash down to the brass studs
under the gunnels of the boats. Then, in each boat, we mounted the
whaleback--which had been stowed along the tops of the thwarts--also its
supports, lashing the same to the thwarts below the knees. Then we laid
two lengths of the stout canvas the full length of the boat over the
whaleback, overlapping and nailing them to the same, so that they sloped
away down over the gunnels upon each side as though they had formed a
roof to us. Here, whilst some stretched the canvas, nailing its lower
edges to the gunnels, others were employed in lashing together the oars
and the mast, and to this bundle they secured a considerable length of
new three-and-a-half-inch hemp rope, which we had brought away from the
hulk along with the canvas. This rope was then passed over the bows and
in through the painter ring, and thence to the forrard thwarts, where it
was made fast, and we gave attention to parcel it with odd strips of
canvas again