"Soon after this we took in our cargo of pineapples and bananas
and started for home. Our first three days' run was as pretty as
ever was made, and with the Gulf Stream to help us, it seemed as
though we might make New York in time for Christmas, after all.
Then there came a change--first a gale that drove us to the
westward, and then light head-winds, or no winds at all; and so we
knocked round for three days more, and on the day before Christmas
we hadn't rounded Hatteras, let alone made Sandy Hook, as we had
hoped to do.

"It was a curious sort of a day, mild and hazy, with the sun
showing round and yellow as an orange. The skipper was uneasy, and
kept squinting at the weather, first on one side and then the
other. We heard him say to the mate that something was coming, for
the mercury was falling faster than he had ever seen it. Things
stood so until sunset, when the haze settled down thicker than
ever. I was at the wheel, when the skipper came on deck and
ordered all canvas to be stripped from her except the double-
reefed main-sail and a corner of the jib. He sung out to me to
keep a sharp lookout for Hatteras Light, and then went below
again.

"When I caught sight of the light, about an hour later, and
reported it, it wasn't any brighter than it looked when you came
on deck, a while ago, Mark, and we were heading directly for it.
When the skipper came up and looked at it he told me to 'keep her
so' while he took a squint at the chart.

"He hadn't more than gone below again when there came such a gust