ort, had sunk into a
faint, undistinguished whisper. Our vessel's course for the first
hour or so was delightful. Towards night, the weather, which had
hitherto proved so serene, began to fluctuate; the wind shifted, and
gradually a heavy swell came rolling in from the north-east towards
us. As the hour advanced, a storm seemed advancing with it; and a
hundred symptoms appeared, the least of which was fully sufficient
to certify the coming on of a tremendous hurricane. Our captain,
however--a bronzed, pinched-up little fellow, whom a series of
north-westers seemed to have dried to a mummy--put a good face on
the matter, and our mate whistled bluffly, though I could not help
fancying that his whistle had something forced about it.

We had by this time been tossing about upwards of four hours, yet
despite the storm, which increased every moment in energy, our
vessel bore up well, labouring and pitching frightfully to be sure,
but as yet uninjured in sail, mast, or hull. As for her course, it
was--so the mate assured me--"a moral impossible to say which way we
were bound, whether for a trip to Spain, Holland, or Van Dieman's
Land; it might be one, it might be t'other." Scarcely had he uttered
these words, when a long rolling sea came sweeping on in hungry
grandeur towards us, and at one rush tore open the ship's gun-wale,
which now, completely at the mercy of the wave, went staggering,
drunken, and blindfold, through the surge. From this fatal moment
the sailors were kept constantly at the pumps, although so
instantaneous was the rush of water into the hold, that they did
little or no good; there seemed, in fact, not the ghost of a chance
left us; even the mate had ceased whistling, and the captain's oaths
began to assume the nature of a compromise between penitence and
hardihood.

It was now midnight, deep, awful midnight; the few remaining
passengers had left the deck and retreated into a bed which they
shared in common with the salt water. The Captain stood, like one
bewildered, beside the helm, while I lay stretched along the
forecastle, watching, as well as I could, the tremendous rushing of
the waves. It was during a partial hush of the storm, when the wind,
as if out of breath, was still, that a shifting light attached
to some moving body, came bearing down full upon us.

"This is an ugly night, sir," said the Captain, who now, for the
first time, found words, "yet methinks I see a sail a-head."

"Surely not,"