"There's that bloomin' compreesant come again!" exclaimed a hoarse
voice; and, sure enough, a light similar to the one that had hung
at the crossjack yard-arm now floated upon the end of the upper
maintopsail-yard.

"The devil's abroad to-night!" exclaimed the captain. "There's
sulphur enough about," and he fell a-snuffling.

What followed might have made an infidel suppose so; for scarce
were the words out of his mouth when there happened an astonishing
blast of noise, as loud and violent as that of forty or fifty cannons
fired off at once, and out of the black sea no farther than a mile
broad on the starboard beam rose a pillar of fire, crimson as the
light of the setting sun and as dazzling too; it lived while you
might have counted twenty, but in that time it lighted up the sea
for leagues and leagues, put out the stars, and made the sky resemble
a canopy of yellow satin; we on the ship saw one another's faces
as if by daylight; the shrouds and masts and our own figures cast
jet-black shadows on the deck; the whole ship flashed out to that
amazing radiance like a fabric sun-touched. The column of fire
then fattened and disappeared, and the night rolled down upon our
blinded eyes as black as thunder.

There was no noise--no hissing as of boiling water. If the furious
report that preceded the leap of the fire had rendered its coming
terrible, its extinction was made not less awful by the tomb-like
stillness that attended it. I sprang on to the rail, believing I
could perceive a dark mass--like a deeper dye upon the blackness
that way--upon the water, and to steady myself caught hold of the
mizzen loyal backstay, swinging out to my arm's length and peering