watch_, when we weighed and started for home, so as to make the worst
of the Ström at slack water, which we knew would be at eight.

"We set out with a fresh wind on our starboard quarter, and for
some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of danger,
for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend it. All at
once we were taken aback by a breeze from over Helseggen. This was
most unusual - something that had never happened to us before - and I
began to feel a little uneasy, without exactly knowing why. We put
the boat on the wind, but could make no headway at all for the
eddies, and I was upon the point of proposing to return to the
anchorage, when, looking astern, we saw the whole horizon covered
with a singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing
velocity.

"In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell away, and
we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This state
of things, however, did not last long enough to give us time to think
about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon us - in less than
two the sky was entirely overcast - and what with this and the
driving spray, it became suddenly so dark that we could not see each
other in the smack.

"Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt describing.
The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced any thing like it. We
had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us; but, at
the first puff, both our masts went by the board as if they had been
sawed off - the mainmast taking with it my youngest brother, who had
lashed himself to it for safety.