heavy. Captain Weber seized it, and a motion of the hand
was enough.

"Down with the helm, Adams, hard down," shouted the watchful mate.

The brig flew up to the wind. "Set the main-staysail!" was the order
thundered from the quarter-deck, and steadily executed by the trained
seaman, the brig being soon hove-to under her main-topsail, fore and
main-staysails, making comparatively good weather of it, and everything
seemed to settle down into its usual order on board the little craft.

"He was a gallant fellow, and would have made a thorough seaman," said
Captain Weber, as he joined the party below, dashing the salt foam from
his eyes and hair as he spoke. "He loved the sea, and left a quiet home
to find a grave here in the Indian Ocean." Isabel seemed violently
affected by the scene which had passed before her eyes.

"His was a sailor's death, it may be ours to-morrow," continued the
captain. "Poor Blount! he was to have had command of one of his
father's ships next voyage."

"What do you think of the weather, Captain Weber?" asked Hughes, wishing
to change the theme, for Isabel was sobbing convulsively, as the thought
of the sorrowing parents came vividly before her.

"These blows seldom hold long, from the fact of their extreme violence.
Should it last we shall be jammed down on the Madagascar coast: indeed,
we cannot be far from it, for the land hereaway is low, or we should
have sighted it at daylight."

"Shall we feel the loss of our spars much?" inquired Wyzinski.

"Not so much while lying to; but our wings are nicely clipped. The
`Halcyon' has been at sea, trading on this coast, for nearly three
years, without ever having the advantage of a good overhaul, or such an
accident could never have happened."

During the whole day, however, the gale continued unabated, and the
dinner table was a neglected one by all save the captain. The party had
been so lately at sea, as to escape all sufferings from sea-sickness,
but the roar of the waves, the rattling of the ropes and blocks, the
howling of the wind, and the many noises incidental to a gale,
prevented, in a certain measure, even conversation. Every now and then
a mass of water would tumble inboard with a loud thud, as it deluged the
brig's decks and washed away to leeward. The staysails, too, as the
vessel fell into the deep trough of the angry waves, would flap with a
report like distant thunder; in a word, all the discomforts of a heavy
gale in