The other vessels were lying too far away for a hail to carry, and there was no wind to lift the signal flags if hoisted; but the commodore was relieved to see the remainder of the fleet follow his example. In a few moments the canvas of the whole squadron was seen coming heavily down or being rolled up on the yards; and before very long all the ships were either under bare poles or being snugged down with everything secured ready for any emergency.
Cavendish, however, still remained very anxious: and he had cause enough for his anxiety. For his squadron had only recently come through a heavy action, and their timbers were strained; masts had been merely secured in a temporary manner, and the necessary stays and fore and aft preventers had not yet all been rigged; indeed, the process of bending new sails, ropes, etcetera, was still being gone on with although the ships had been got under way at the earliest possible moment. Shot-holes had been only roughly plugged, and in some of the vessels pumping was still being carried on day and night. The two prizes had been knocked about still more badly; in fact the whole squadron was in a very unfit state to encounter even a strong gale, and the coming storm threatened something very much worse than this. But everything was battened down and made as snug as possible, and all that Cavendish could now do was to trust in Providence and hope his ships would survive the tempest, since nothing had been left undone that mortal hands could possibly do.
A dull moaning sound at length began to make itself heard, and several hot sulphurous gusts of wind came down out of the north; the blocks overhead creaked, the cordage rattled, and in the heavy silence weird noises made themselves perceptible. Roger and Harry were standing on the poop, exchanging comments on the weather, and Cavendish and his chief officer, Richard Leigh, were in close conversation on the main-deck just below them, glancing anxiously from time to time toward the northward, where the sky had become black almost as midnight.
“Look there, Harry,” observed Roger, pointing to the main-topgallant yard; and, looking up, Harry perceived two lambent globes of greenish fire.
As he continued looking and wondering what they might be, other weird lights made their appearance on the yard-arms and on the very tops of the masts, presenting a beautiful, but at the same time a very eerie, spectacle. The same phenomenon was to be seen on the spars of every vessel in sight; and as it was by this time very nearly dark (there being scarcely any twilight in these latitudes), the whole squadron had the appearance of being illuminated.
“Whatever can it possibly be?” queried Harry; “I have never seen anything like it before.”
“I suspect,” returned Roger, “that it is in some way connected with the approaching storm. I have heard sailors speak of those lights as witch-lights, death-gleams, and corposants, and their appearance is said always to foretell disaster. I hope, however, that they do not forebode evil on this occasion, although things are looking decidedly unpleasant just now.”
Cavendish, hearing their conversation, looked up, and, observing the apprehension of the two, explained to them that the lights were termed, by the Portuguese navigators, “Lights of Saint Elmo”; and he assured the lads that the lights were not the cause of, but the harbingers of, storm.
“I fear, however,” added he, “that we are in for a bad time of it, and you youngsters had better beware lest you be swept overboard when the sea rises; for if anyone is washed over the side during what is coming he will have no chance of being picked up again. So take care, young men!”
Suddenly Roger perceived, far away to the north, a line of white, which looked like a thin streak of paint drawn across an ebony background, and the dull moaning noise in the air quickly grew in volume, at the same time becoming more shrill. Roger shouted down a warning to Leigh, who was standing near the wheel, and pointed away in the direction from which the line of white was approaching. Cavendish, who had just walked forward to make sure that all was as it should be, heard the warning, and shouted an order for all on deck to prepare for the outfly, and then, seizing his speaking-trumpet, rushed up on the poop beside the boys, and roared out a warning to the only ship within hail. Then, turning, he told the two lads to get down off the poop on to the main-deck, where they would be sheltered to a certain extent by the high bulwarks of the ship. In obedience to this command they hurried down the starboard accommodation ladder, whilst Cavendish made his way down the one on the port side, and all three reached the deck together.