and Captain Weber turned
in at midnight, the "Halcyon" was working her way through the seas
crested with foam, in that peculiar jerking manner usual to vessels
close hauled; but with little cargo, and what there was light, she made
splendid weather of it, topping the great waves, or wallowing in the
trough, though, as Captain Weber emphatically observed, slapping his
hand down on the cabin hatchway, "She didn't ship an egg-spoonful of
water."

"Hands by the royal sheets and halyards. In royals. Mr Lowe, see to
the royal braces," were the words heard, as the two stepped below, about
midnight. Morning was scarcely dawning over the ocean as Captain Weber
again made his appearance on deck. According to a seaman's instinct,
his first glance was directed aloft, his second to the compass.

"Ah, I thought you would have a reef in the topsails before morning,
Blount, and I see I am right."

"We had better go about soon, Captain Weber," replied the mate; "there
is a little westing in the gale since midnight, and the brig has lain up
a couple of points."

"We will stand on until we make the coast of Madagascar, Blount; we must
have made a good deal of southing, there are no islands between us and
the coast, except `Barren Islands,' and they lie far away to the
northward."

"How's her head now, Jones?" asked the mate.

"South-east and by south, sir," replied the man at the wheel.

"Then we shall fetch Cape Saint Vincent on the Madagascar coast; and it
will have been a long leg."

It was a grand sight as the little "Halcyon" struggled through the chaos
of water. The change in the wind, slight as it was, had greatly aided
her, but the gale was gradually increasing. Overhead the heavy clouds
were flying before its fury, the long waves being an angry green, white
with foam. Far as the eye could reach, one sheet of tumbling water was
to be seen, bounded only by the horizon. No sail, not even a solitary
gull was in sight, and through this the "Halcyon" was straggling, now
rising on the foam, now falling into the bright green trough, as she
dragged her way onward through the seething ocean, under her
single-reefed topsails, foresail, fore-topmast-staysail, and
boom-mainsail.

On swept the little brig, but the gale increased in its fury after
sunrise. Towards twelve o'clock, the Senhora Isabel appeared on the
quarter-deck, whither she had been conducted by the first-mate. The men
of the watch lay close under the weat