hand your courses!" he continued in a shout; "roll them up, cheerily; in
with them, boys, cheerily; in!"

The conscious seamen took their impulses from the tones of their
commander. In a moment, twenty dark forms were leaping up the rigging,
with the alacrity of so many quadrupeds. In another minute, the vast and
powerful sheets of canvas were effectually rendered harmless, by securing
them in tight rolls to their respective spars. The men descended as
swiftly as they had mounted to the yards; and then succeeded another
breathing pause. At this appalling moment, a candle would have sent its
flame perpendicularly towards the heavens. The ship, missing the
steadying power of the wind, rolled heavily in the troughs of the seas,
which began to lessen at each instant, as if the startled element was
recalling into the security of its own vast bosom that portion of its
particles which had so lately been permitted to gambol madly over its
surface. The water washed sullenly along the side of the ship, or, as
she labouring rose from one of her frequent falls into the hollows of the
waves, it shot back into the ocean from her decks in glittering cascades.
Every hue of the heavens, every sound of the element, and each dusky and
anxious countenance, helped to proclaim the intense interest of the
moment. In this brief interval of expectation and inactivity, the mates
again approached their commander.

"It is an awful night, Captain Wilder!" said Earing, presuming on his
rank to be the first to speak.

"I have known far less notice given of a shift of wind," was the answer.

"We have had time to gather in our kites, 'tis true, sir; but there are
signs and warnings that come with this change which the oldest seaman