It was about a week later that the brig, thrashing along to the southward, close-hauled, and with her fore topgallantsail and main royal stowed, experienced a thrillingly narrow escape from destruction.
It was just two bells in the first watch, that is to say nine o’clock p.m. The night was fine, with bright starlight, and no moon, that luminary happening then to rise late. The wind was piping up strong and sending the trade clouds scurrying across the spangled sky at a great pace; and there was a fair amount of sea running, into which the Mermaid dug her bluff bows viciously, smothering her forecastle with spray and darkening the weather clew of her fore-course with it halfway up to the yard. Miss Trevor was on deck, taking the air, and graciously favouring Leslie with her company for an hour or two prior to turning in for the night. The pair were promenading the deck together, fore and aft, between the stern grating and the mainmast, the girl availing herself of the support of Leslie’s arm to steady her upon the dancing deck.
Suddenly, as they were in the act of wheeling round abreast the main rigging, a flash of ruddy light illumined the tumbling surface of the sea, the deck they trod, the sails, and every detail of the brig’s equipment; and glancing skyward, they beheld a meteor trailing a long tail of scintillating sparks behind it, high aloft over the brig’s port quarter. With inconceivable rapidity the glowing object increased in size, its light meanwhile changing as rapidly from red to a dazzling white, until the light became almost as intense as that of the noonday sun. It was a magnificent spectacle, but one also full of unspeakable horror for those aboard the brig who stood gazing in speechless fascination at it; for it was evident that it was not only falling through the air at a speed far surpassing that of a cannon shot, but was also coming straight for the brig. A deep humming sound that, as it seemed, in the space of a single moment increased to an almost deafening scream, marked the speed of its flight through the air; and as Leslie grasped the fact that in another second that enormous glowing mass—weighing, as he conceived, some hundreds of tons—must infallibly strike the brig and smash her to atoms, he instinctively interposed his own body between his companion and the gigantic hurtling missile—as though such frail protection could have been of any service to her! Then, while it was still some two hundred yards from the brig—at which distance the heat of it fell upon their white upturned faces like the breath of a suddenly opened furnace—the dazzling white-hot mass burst with a deafening explosion into a thousand pieces, some of which flew hurtling over and about the brig, but happily without touching her; and the danger was over. It had come and was gone again in the brief space of some seven seconds.
“That is the narrowest shave I have ever had in my life,” ejaculated Leslie, catching his breath. “And you, Miss Trevor, have had an experience such as falls to the lot of few people, I imagine—the experience of being threatened with destruction by a falling meteor, and surviving to tell the tale! I wonder how many others, beside this little ship’s company, have ever beheld so appalling and magnificent a sight as we have this night witnessed?”
“Have you any suspicion, Mr Leslie, that this brig is especially marked out and chosen as the theatre for exceptionally thrilling experiences?” quaintly demanded the girl. “Because if there is a probability that such is the case, I really think I shall be obliged to reconsider my decision to proceed to Valparaiso in her, and ask you to land me at the nearest port. The tragic deaths of those two men, Potter and Purchas, were quite thrilling enough to upset the nerves of any ordinary girl; but when it comes to being bombarded by meteors, I would really very much rather be excused.”
“Of course you would,” assented Leslie, laughingly. “All the same,” he continued, “although I must confess that I have never heard of such a thing happening, it might as probably have occurred in the heart of London itself as out here at sea. That meteors actually fall to the earth we know, for there are numerous records of such happenings; they have been seen to fall, and have immediately afterwards been found partially buried in the ground and still hot from the friction of their flight through the air. Precisely where they will fall and strike is necessarily a matter of the merest chance; you are, therefore, so far as falling meteors are concerned, quite as safe here as anywhere else.”
“Thank you,” answered Miss Trevor, gravely, “it is reassuring to learn that, no matter where I am, I am liable to have a huge incandescent mass of meteoric stone hurtling at me out of space at any moment—for that is what your statement really amounts to, you know—isn’t it? And now I will bid you good night and retire to my cabin, with the fixed resolution not to dream of falling meteors.”
And therewith she gave him her hand for a moment, and then vanished down the companion-way.