ide; and accordingly, having worked
out my sights, I returned to the deck, and all hands of us went to work
upon the canvas, clewing up and hauling down all our lighter sails,
until we had stripped the ship to topsails, courses, fore-topmast
staysail, jib, and mizzen. At this stage of the proceedings another
glance at the barometer showed that the mercury was still shrinking in
the tube, while the atmosphere had assumed a hazy appearance that
rendered it difficult to distinguish the horizon. There could no longer
be any doubt that a change of weather was impending, although there was
nothing at present to indicate very precisely what the character of the
change was to be. We therefore went aloft, three of us on the foremast,
and three on the main, and beginning with the royals and working
downward, snugly stowed everything that we had previously hauled down.
It was whilst we were thus engaged that an increasing uneasiness in the
motion of the ship first became apparent; and looking about us for the
cause, we became aware of the fact that a cross swell had begun to
gather, and was slowly creeping down to us from the north-west--the sure
precursor, Forbes affirmed, of a stiff blow from that quarter. In this
opinion I fully agreed; still there was at that moment nothing of a
menacing character in the aspect of the sky, beyond an increasing
thickness of the atmosphere; and I was therefore hopeful that we should
have a sufficiency of time given us to complete our preparations for the
worst that could happen, before it came upon us.

The furling of the light canvas was neither a very long nor a very
laborious job, and in less than an hour we were all once more on deck.
The north-westerly swell had by this time gathered sufficient weight to
render itself distinctly perceptible even to the eye, and, the ship
having swung round broadside-on to it, she was rolling in a fashion that
set all the trusses, parrels, and bulkheads creaking, the yards jerking,
the patent block-sheaves squeaking, the heavy canvas flapping, the
reef-points pattering, the cabin-doors rattling, and the wheel-chains
clanking, so that, with the heavy wash of water along the bends and
under the counter, and an occasional clatter of crockery in the pantry,
quite a small Babel of sound was raised about us. The motion of the
ship, however, though more violent, was not so awkward and uncomfortable
as it had been, doubtless in consequence of the young swell kil