glassy hollow, a deep valley between two ridges of the sea, hiding
the horizon ahead and astern. There was such fascination in her
pluck, nimbleness, the continual exhibition of unfailing
seaworthiness, in the semblance of courage and endurance, that I
could not give up the delight of watching her run through the three
unforgettable days of that gale which my mate also delighted to
extol as "a famous shove."

And this is one of those gales whose memory in after-years returns,
welcome in dignified austerity, as you would remember with pleasure
the noble features of a stranger with whom you crossed swords once
in knightly encounter and are never to see again. In this way
gales have their physiognomy. You remember them by your own
feelings, and no two gales stamp themselves in the same way upon
your emotions. Some cling to you in woebegone misery; others come
back fiercely and weirdly, like ghouls bent upon sucking your
strength away; others, again, have a catastrophic splendour; some
are unvenerated recollections, as of spiteful wild-cats clawing at
your agonized vitals; others are severe, like a visitation; and one
or two rise up draped and mysterious, with an aspect of ominous
menace. In each of them there is a characteristic point at which
the whole feeling seems contained in one single moment. Thus there
is a certain four o'clock in the morning in the confused roar of a
black and white world when coming on deck to take charge of my
watch I received the instantaneous impression that the ship could
not live for another hour in such a raging sea.

I wonder what became of the men who silently (you couldn't hear
yourself speak) must have shared that conviction with me. To be
left to write about it is not, perhaps, the most enviable fate; but