enti, in Sicily, and we wanted to
finish an easy run here. We left St. Michael's on the same day. Nothing
worth while talking about occurred until two days afterward--Wednesday,
May 7th.

"We were plodding along slowly that day. About noon I took the bridge
to make an observation. It seemed to be hotter than ordinary. I shed my
coat and vest and got into what little shade there was. As I worked it
grew hotter and hotter. I didn't know what to make of it. Along about
2 o'clock in the afternoon it was so hot that all hands got to talking
about it. We reckoned that something queer was coming off, but none of
us could explain what it was. You could almost see the pitch softening
in the seams.

"Then, as quick as you could toss a biscuit over its rail, the Nordby
dropped--regularly dropped--three or four feet down into the sea. No
sooner did it do this than big waves, that looked like they were coming
from all directions at once, began to smash against our sides. This was
queerer yet, because the water a minute before was as smooth as I ever
saw it. I had all hands piped on deck and we battened down everything
loose to make ready for a storm. And we got it all right--the strangest
storm you ever heard tell of.

"There was something wrong with the sun that afternoon. It grew red and
then dark red and then, about a quarter after 2, it went out of sight
altogether. The day got so dark that you couldn't see half a ship's
length ahead of you. We got our lamps going, and put on our oilskins,
ready for a hurricane. All of a sudden there came a sheet of lightning
that showed up the whole tumbling sea for miles and miles. We sort of
ducked, expecting an awful crash of thunder, but it didn't come. There
was no sound except the big waves pounding against our sides. There
wasn't a breath of wind.

"Well, sir, at that minute there began the most exciting time I've ever
been through, and I've been on every sea on the map for twenty-five
years. Every second there'd be waves 15 or 20 feet high, belting us
head-on, stern-on and broadside, all at once. We could see them coming,
for without any stop at all flash after flash of lightning was blazing
all about us.

"Something else we could see, too. Sharks! There were hundreds of them
on all sides, jumping up and down in the water. Some of them jumped
clear out of it. And sea birds! A flock of them, squawking and crying,
made for our rigging and perched there. They seemed like they were
s